Political dialogue

The internal political crisis in Ukraine largely provoked by Western actions has seriously undermined the Russia-EU relationship. The multi-layered architecture of Russia-EU political dialogue meticulously built over the past years was affected by the crisis. As part of its overall policy of exerting political pressure on our country, the European Union suspended bilateral cooperation on most tracks, including regular Russia-EU summits.

Russia is in favour of full resumption of work via all channels of the Russia-EU political dialogue. We believe that these contacts benefit both parties and contribute to maintaining global and regional security. 

The institutional framework of the political dialogue is laid down in the Russia-EU Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in force since 1997, and includes regular Russia-EU summits (twice a year alternatively on Russian and EU territory), meetings of the Permanent Partnership Council at the level of foreign ministers, as well as meetings of the Russian Foreign Minister with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and 28 foreign ministers of EU member states, including in New York on the margins of UN General Assembly sessions. 

At the senior officials and expert levels the political dialogue includes regular meetings of Political Directors of the Russian MFA and the European External Action Service, meetings between the Permanent Representative of Russia to the EU and the Chairman of the EU Political and Security Committee, as well as expert-level consultations on a wide range of topical international and regional issues. Meetings between Russian and EU parliamentarians in the framework of the Russia-EU Parliamentary Cooperation Committee constitute another important part of the political dialogue.