MOSCOW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union efforts to agree a long-delayed mandate for partnership negotiations with Russia stalled again on Thursday despite a prediction of imminent agreement from Luxembourg's prime minister.
By Conor Sweeney and Paul Taylor
MOSCOW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union efforts to agree a long-delayed mandate for partnership negotiations with Russia stalled again on Thursday despite a prediction of imminent agreement from Luxembourg's prime minister.
Diplomats said Lithuania maintained its veto on starting the talks to demand assurances on energy supplies, cooperation over a missing businessman and Russian movement on frozen conflicts in former Soviet republics.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told Reuters in Moscow he expected the 27-nation EU would overcome 18 months of internal divisions and agree to start talks on a new partnership deal with Russia within days.
!ADVERTISEMENT!"I do know that in Poland, in Lithuania, maybe elsewhere, there are great or small reluctancies, but I think that these will be sorted out in the next coming days," Juncker said in an interview before talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, diplomats in Brussels said no progress was seen at a meeting of EU ambassadors on Thursday and there was scant prospect of the bloc's foreign ministers breaking the deadlock when they meet next Tuesday.
"It could take until June," one EU diplomat said, predicting the mandate may be approved just in time for an EU-Russia summit with President-elect Dmitry Medvedev in Siberia on June 26-27.
Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, voiced concern last week that the EU was allowing the negotiations to be taken hostage by new member states that were once Soviet satellites and bore a grudge against Moscow.
The negotiations, covering trade, economic development, energy, human rights and political cooperation, were due to have been launched in November 2006 but Poland vetoed the mandate after Moscow barred imports of fresh food products from Warsaw.
CONCERNS WIDENED
Poland recently dropped its reservation after Russia lifted the embargo.
But Lithuania has widened its concerns from a cut-off of Russian oil supplies to its refinery, to the disappearance of a businessman in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Russia's relations with the ex-Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.
Juncker is the longest-serving prime minister within the EU and is considered a crucial player amongst the exclusive club of 27 leaders. He is also the chairman of the euro-zone group of finance ministers.
"I do think that the European Union and Russia do need the strategic partnership and I would like the negotiations to take a real start under the Slovenian presidency," Juncker said, referring to the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency.
Juncker said he had a good working relationship with Putin and had been invited to meet his successor, Medvedev, who will be sworn in as Russian President on May 7. Putin is expected to serve as his prime minister.
"My impression is Mr. Putin did a good job in the sense that he was stabilizing Russia and the Russian state and I am among those who are grateful to him for having done this," he said.
Medvedev said they must discuss both security issues and the new partnership deal.
"We live in a single, European home. We have much to talk about, both in this area, on the question of signing a new agreement, and ensuring European security," Medvedev said.
When he then met Putin, Juncker said he believed in the importance of linking Russia to Europe.
"I have always believed that Russia is a part of the European architecture and I was always certain that we need a strategic partnership," Juncker told Putin.
"After my lengthy meeting with the president-elect, I am absolutely sure there will be continuity in our relations."
(Additional reporting by Denis Dyomkin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
