20 May 2010, Brussels
Ambassador Chizhov: Welcome for another press-conference at the Russian Permanent Mission to the European Union. As you might have noticed entering our building, we are no longer accredited to the European Communities because only one of them is left. So, the official name is now Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union and the European Community for Atomic Energy.
Negotiations on a New basic agreement between Russia and the EU
We are meeting at a kind of a turning point. Let me start with the events that were finalized yesterday – the 9th round of the negotiations on the New basic agreement between Russia and the European Union. We continue this negotiation process at a fairly good speed. Having completed 9 rounds we have a number of agreed articles and even bigger number of those almost agreed. I would not like to compare the relative progress achieved so far on the various tracks and chapters of the future agreement. But overall, and here I can also speak on behalf of my interlocutors on the EU side, we are both satisfied with the pace and the substance of the negotiations, which, of course, should not be perceived as a completely problem-free exercise. Definitely, as in many negotiations the easy parts are addressed more quickly and then, as we approach the end, we will increasingly have to deal with the trickier parts. But I do not see any of those as insurmountable obstacles. We agreed to hold the next round in June-July. Unfortunately, I am loosing my main interlocutor for the second time already. The first one was Directorate-General Eneko Landenberg, head of DG RELEX of the European Commission, and then his successor – Joao Almeida who is also leaving. So, somebody else will take this place.
“we are both satisfied with the pace and the substance of the negotiations, which, of course, should not be perceived as a completely problem-free exercise”
Russia-EU Permanent Partnership Council in the field of freedom, security and justice
Now we are approaching two major events. I will gradually increase the level of importance. Next week will see the 12th meeting of the Russia-EU Permanent Partnership Council in the field of freedom, security and justice, which will be held in the city of Kazan on the Volga River in Russia. We expect there, since, strictly speaking, this area is outside of foreign policy, the EU will be more traditionally represented: the current Spanish Presidency, the incoming Belgian Presidency and the European Commission as well as the future Presidency of Hungary as part of the “trio”, which should not be confused with the better sounding Russian word “troika”.
Russia-EU summit in Rostov-on-Don
And then, ultimately, on 31 May and 1 June in another Russian city – Rostov, on another river called the Don we will have the 25th Russia-EU summit. Well, being a veteran of those summits – actually I have started thinking of claiming a reference in the Guinness book of records, because of 24 summits held so far I participated personally in 22. I only missed the very first two. So, the 25th summit will be different because or thanks to the Lisbon Treaty. It will be held for the first time in our relationship in the new format – there will be no Spanish Presidency. The EU will be represented by President van Rompuy of the European Council, President Barroso of the European Commission, Lady Aston as the High Representative and Commissioner De Gucht responsible for trade. The Russian side will be, of course, headed by President Medvedev. There will also be Foreign Minister Lavrov, Minister of Economic Development Nabiullina and the number of others, including my humble self.
“Summit in Rostov-on-Don will be held for the first time in our relationship in the new format”
The agenda is expected to be traditional, I would say, in line with the developments of the last couple of years. It will address issues of global dimension, international political issues and bilateral ones. The global issues will encompass the current, hopefully receding financial and economic crisis. I am sure, my President will be interested to hear about the prospects of the euro. But more important is an issue of coordinating the Russian and EU approaches towards anti-crisis measures and what is more important – towards the exit strategies from the crisis. As you know, later in the course of June Canada will host summits of the G8 and the G20. The European Union, being, shall I put it correctly, de facto the 9th member of the G8 and certainly part of the G20, will work on its own approach to these summits and the European Council in June. And, of course, the Russian side is also preparing for those events. I may remind you that for the first time global economic issues were introduced onto the Russia-EU agenda two years ago at the summit in Khanty-Mansiysk when few people anticipated that the world was rapidly approaching global financial and economic crisis. So that discussion was initiated by President Medvedev and during further summits this issue was retaining on the agenda and this will be the case in Rostov as well.
The next issue is climate change. None of us is particularly happy with the outcome of the Copenhagen climate summit last December. We are certainly interested in seeing more progress, more substantial results at the next meeting in Cancun later this year.
Bilateral issues. Of course, there will be discussions on how the road maps leading to the four common spaces are being implemented, how the negotiations on the future agreement are going on. But I would like to highlight two things. The first is the initiative on establishing a partnership for modernization. This is an initiative that dates back to the previous summit in Stockholm in November last year. Since then the two sides have appointed coordinators who have exchanged their concept papers covering the respective approaches to this issue. We are currently working on a possible joint statement that might be coming out of the Rostov summit. I believe it to be a very topical issue, important for both sides. Let me briefly outline what we have in mind. This is not about the “know-it-all” European Union “playing God coming down to Earth” to modernize Russia and the rest of the world. It is not a second edition of TACIS if you remember what that was. How we see it? It should be a collective answer from Russia and the European Union to similar challenges that we are facing. We are not living in a vacuum and there are many others in this evolving multipolar world than just ourselves. We believe that these common challenges require common and coordinated answers. There are areas where we could exchange best practices, pile together state and private resources and become more competitive against the big emerging economies of the East, South and other parts of the world. I can briefly name few of the possible tracks: space exploration, pharmaceutics, nanotechnologies, communication technologies, infrastructure of various kinds, and so on.
“This is not about the “know-it-all” European Union “playing God coming down to Earth” to modernize Russia and the rest of the world. It is not a second edition of TACIS if you remember what that was”
The second highlight that I want to draw your attention to is a discussion on the prospects of a visa-free regime between Russia and the European Union. It is connected to the first one – modernization – because modernization implies enhanced mobility not only of goods but also of people, wider exchange of ideas, knowledge, which are carried by people, not just by computers, and of course people-to-people contacts, which is the humanitarian side of that issue. I know that the European Union has been discussing this issue for some time. The Russian position has already been outlined by President Medvedev in very simple terms: “We are prepared to abolish visas with the European Union tomorrow morning”. No preconditions. We do maintain a visa dialogue, which is designed to address this prospect, but I think that we have proceeded far enough to be able to look at possible timelines. Actually, for the first time visa-free regime was outlined officially as a common goal seven years ago in May 2003 at the Russia-EU summit in Saint-Petersburg. Then the EU was only prepared to go as far as naming it a long-term goal. Fair enough but we are now living seven years later and we certainly believe it is high time that something more concrete is introduced into that formula. I know that some member-states may politicize this issue, cherishing their phobias of the past. Those phobias were quite palpable in early 1990s soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union when people in the Western part of Europe were expecting waves of refugees swarming from the East. Well, actually Western Europe has seen waves of refugees but coming from a different direction. And this is an issue that might be the substance of another dialogue that we are preparing to launch – the migration dialogue with the European Union, which will be focused on addressing how to deal with, on the one hand, illegal migration and prevent it, and, on the other hand, legal migration and how to regulate it. So these issues will be very high on the agenda and attract a lot of attention.
“We are prepared to abolish visas with the European Union tomorrow morning”
International set of issues will cover those, where Russia and the EU are actively participating, including the Middle East peace process, the Iranian nuclear programme, regional issues within Europe and of the world.
Of course, what I have just outlined is a tentative agenda. It is certainly not rigid and the leaders or the participants in the summit are free to address any issue that they would consider to be appropriate. But this is a broad outline of how I personally see the upcoming discussions. I have been speaking long enough, so it is time for you to ask questions.
Visa-free regime
Question: The question on the visa issue. Some EU member-states say that this is the last leverage the EU has on Russia and without it the EU will have no leverages at all in its relations with Russia. Do you understand what that means?
Ambassador Chizhov: No. Well, first of all, I don not see why the EU should need leverages or why Russia should need leverages on the EU. Secondly, I think that visa-free regime will benefit both sides. Perhaps, there may be more Russians travelling to the EU than the EU citizens travelling to Russia but it is two-way street. I think this issue as well as others in the Russia-EU relations should not be addressed from the position of a zero-sum game. It is a game where all sides win.
Question: Could you be more precise on how visa-free regime should be reached?
Ambassador Chizhov: So far we have managed to conclude the Visa Facilitation Agreement coupled with the Readmission Agreement. Both work well. There were some difficulties with the visa facilitation procedures in the beginning, which were understandable. But now they are both working in a satisfactory manner. So, this could be regarded as a first step towards total abolition of visas. Secondly, I would not want to speculate where the middle ground between “long-term” and “tomorrow morning” lies. But we are prepared to negotiate in earnest and hope to see light at the end of the tunnel.
Question: Can you suggest a year, when the visa-free regime can be established?
Ambassador Chizhov: There was a precedent of naming the year. The person was Romano Prodi when he was the President of the European Commission and the year that he pinpointed was 2008. I would want to repeat that experience.
Frozen conflicts
Question: Ambassador, you have mentioned that Russia and the EU are going to discuss regional issues. Will they include the frozen conflicts’ settlement, in particular Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and especially Georgia?
Ambassador Chizhov: Well, I don not know if there are any frozen conflicts left in Georgia. But Moldova, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh might be indeed part of the discussion.
Global financial and economic crisis
Question: How does the current crisis influence the Russia-EU relations? And what is your personal view on the prospects of the euro?
Ambassador Chizhov: If I knew what would happen to the euro, perhaps, I would have had a different job. Of course, we are concerned because we have regarded the euro since its inception as an element of global financial stability. It had its ups and downs in the last several years. Russia-EU trade, if measured in euros, went down as the turnover in general in the course of last year. In 2008 our trade with the EU was over 280 bn euros. It dropped to something slightly above 180 bn euros. But that was more the result of falling demand rather than fluctuations of the euro. A major set of commodities that are being exported from Russia to the European Union, namely oil and gas, are still being priced in US dollars on the world market. Nobody measures a barrel of oil in euros so far.
Energy
Question: Will energy issues be addressed at the summit, like energy dialogue and Energy Charter?
Ambassador Chizhov: Yes, the course of the energy dialogue will be discussed. The issues of the Charter is not considered to be a very topical one. But the principles of organizing international energy cooperation in global scale will certainly appear in the discussion. The energy dialogue is proceeding quite smoothly. There was a change of the relevant EU Commissioner – from Andris Piebalgs to Günther Oettinger. Since he took the office he has already visited Moscow and had discussions with his Russian counterparts. We are looking forward to having Permanent Partnership Council at ministerial level on energy in the second half of this year.
If you want me to be more specific, we appreciate the support that the European Union, the European Commission has outlined for the Nord Stream. We anticipate that the similar approach will be taken towards South Stream. On nuclear energy, of course, with due respect to the different positions of the various EU member-states on the concept of using nuclear energy to produce electricity, we see that on the whole the vector of the EU policy in that area is changing towards a more positive approach. And we are quite happy, because Russia is a major producer of electricity from nuclear energy – the percentage in the current energy mix of Russia is about 15% and that will grow with the construction of new nuclear power stations in Russia, including the one in Kaliningrad. Russia also possesses technology for constructing nuclear power stations in other countries. Some of them are the EU member-states like Bulgaria, which has signed a contract with a Russian company to build a new nuclear power station. More recently there was an agreement signed with Turkey to build, if I am not mistaken, four units. And other countries across the world. So this is a very promising area. On the Kaliningrad nuclear power station, of course, it will produce much more energy than may be consumed by the Kaliningrad region – it will also be an export-oriented project vis-à-vis, first of all, neighboring countries – Poland, Lithuania.
The Treaty of Lisbon
Question: How does Russia see the European Union six month after the Lisbon Treaty came into effect? Are there any signs that the EU increases its role, projects itself more effectively on world stage?
Ambassador Chizhov: Can I answer with the words of Deng Xiaoping which he used when asked to describe the significance of the French revolution for the 200 years anniversary –“it is too early to tell”. We know the differences, we are monitoring the internal discussions that are going on between the various EU institutions, including the European Parliament. We hope that when everything is settled, when all the structures and new people are in place – and I have in mind, of course, the External Actions Service, which will be our primary interlocutor – we look forward to seeing the EU more efficient, more streamlined, perhaps, and also less distracted from its relationship with third countries because of internal deliberations.
Belarus
Question: How do you assess the situation in Belarus with opposition meetings and so on? Is it destabilizing?
Ambassador Chizhov: I do not have that impression. There are ups and downs but we hope that Belarus will escape destabilization like we see in some other countries.
Negotiations on a New basic agreement
Question: Ambassador, you have mentioned the negotiations on a New agreement. What are the main difficult issues in this process? When will it be concluded and there will be real cooperation?
Ambassador Chizhov: Well, we do have real cooperation without the New agreement because the existing one is in force. The negotiations do not prevent us from cooperation. Let me first answer the second part of the question – when. In the long years that I have been at the diplomatic profession, 34 years already, I have come to understand a few things. One of those things is that nothing can be as detrimental to any negotiation process than an artificially put deadline. On the substance let me avoid elaborating on details of negotiation, which is considered by both sides to be confidential. But I will not reveal any secrets if I say that we have been addressing in the last two rounds an issue related to the interface between these negotiations and the continuing negotiations on Russian accession to the WTO. We proceed from the assumption that by the time we finalize this agreement Russia will have already become a member of the WTO. Unfortunately, it has not happened so far. And it is not Russia’s fault that it has not yet happened. But we still hope that this will be the sequence of events. There were some questions raised by our partners in the last few months regarding the modalities of addressing WTO accession and the formation of the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. These questions were addressed, we had a very successful visit here by First Deputy Prime Minister Shuvalov back in mid April and he met Barroso and others. There is a better understanding on the part of the EU of how to proceed further on the trade and economic elements of the future agreement.
“nothing can be as detrimental to any negotiation process than an artificially put deadline”
Russian minorities in the EU
Question: A question on Russian minorities in the EU member-states. Will this issue be discussed at the summit?
Ambassador Chizhov: This is an issue that has been on the agenda ever since Latvia and Estonia joined the EU. And even before that because in the run up to the 2004 enlargement we were raising this issue with EU colleagues. We were receiving, I would say, a very bureaucratic answer at that time – that since those countries are being accepted to the European Union that means that they have successfully fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria. To this my answer was and, unfortunately, continues to be today – then, there is something wrong with the Copenhagen criteria. Latvia and Estonia are the only two countries in the world which have this category of people who are regarded as aliens and they did not come from Mars or Venus. Actually about half of them were born there. And going back to the days almost 20 years ago – the days of the dissolution of the Soviet Union – in those countries decisions to proclaim independence were initiated by the then organs of state power of the Soviet Socialist Republics of Latvia and Estonia. The procedure was to hold referenda and those referenda were held with the participation of the whole population. The overwhelming majority of the Russians voted in favour of the independence. Next morning the Russians were told: “Ok. Thank you for voting. We do not need you any more”. But there is another strange thing: when seats in the European Parliament are distributed among the EU member-states according to the national quotas (number of seats) they are counted in. But they are deprived of voting rights. In Latvia in particular they can not even vote in municipal elections, which is contrary to the acquis communautaire, to the obligations of all those countries within the Council of Europe. Somebody coming from, let me say, the most distant part of the European Union, say Portugal, to live in Latvia and after six months can vote for major. Whereas Russians, who have been living there all their lives, are deprived of that right. So something is really wrong with the Copenhagen criteria then. This is an issue that needs to be addressed. I have been following the EU activities in other parts of Europe, including the Balkans. I vividly remember the Ohrid agreement on Southern Serbia and also Macedonia, whatever is the recognized name of the country. That was the result of the initiative undertaken by Javier Solana. And that stipulated, and I quote, that «any minority which numbers at least 20% of the population has the right to have its language recognized as an official language of the country and a fair distribution, according to that proportion, of jobs in the government service, police and the army”. So one can not escape the feeling that the EU has not yet cleared itself of double standards.
Crisis management
Question: Are you going to discuss cooperation within ESDP/CSDP?
Ambassador Chizhov: Certainly. Actually, one of the promising areas of cooperation is crisis management. That will be reflected in the basic agreement but we need a specific agreement as well. On the ground we have been cooperating quite successfully in various peace-keeping and similar operations. Let me name a few. The first instance was EUPM – the EU police mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Russian participation. Then the Russian helicopter contingent participated in the EU-led operation in Chad and Central African Republic. And last but not the least we are closely coordinating our anti-piracy efforts off the coast of Somalia. The most recent example – a tanker with Russian crew that was freed by Russian warship but with the assistance of Atalanta in terms of providing information and other types of support. What we need is to address crisis management in a broader scope – various types of missions, there will be EU-led mission with the Russian participation or Russia-led operations with the EU participation. There may be joint participation in the UN missions, civilian and military. We are also cooperating fairly well in the area of civil protection addressing emergencies of various sorts – fighting forest fires, addressing the aftermath of earthquakes, etc. So it is a very positive trend.
