By BY ARI SYRQUINMedvedev & Tusk 311(photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
One of the EU’s primary foreign relations challenges is in finding a way to interact with its large neighbor to the east – Russia.Current diplomacy centers around the four “Common Spaces” created at the St. Petersburg Summit of 2003, followed by a “road map,” signed in 2005, which set out short to medium range goals. The four spaces of cooperation are economic, justice, external security and research.Russia and the EU recently reported on progress made during 2009 in EU-Russia relations.The overall objective of the Common Economic Space is the creation of an integrated market between the EU and Russia. The aim is to put in place conditions which will increase opportunities for economic operators and promote trade and investment.At the EU-Russia summit of November 2009, EC President Jose Manuel Barroso and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev agreed to work together on a “Partnership for Modernization” which they hope will give a fresh impetus to the implementation of the Common Spaces. A number of regional organizations were also considered, including theNorthern Dimension, (a partnership between Russia, the Nordic countriesand the Baltic states), the Council of the Baltic Sea States, theHelsinki Convention (governing environmental protection in the BalticSea), and the Black Sea Synergy which includes Russia and EU statessurrounding the Black Sea.Economic cooperation between the EUand Russia is seen as a key element for the greater integration ofRussia into the world economy, specifically Russia’s accession to theWTO. On the other hand, protectionist tariffs and Russia’s customsunion with Belarus and Kazakhstan are putting a damper on thoseefforts. The new circumstances also reduce the possibility of a futurebilateral free trade area between the EU and Russia, which isconditional upon Russia’s WTO accession.In the field of energy,communication between the EU and Russia has been maintained at alllevels. However, that did not prevent the disruption of gas deliveriesto European consumers at the beginning of 2009. As a response, anenhanced early warning mechanism was agreed in November 2009, and therewas no disruption at the beginning of 2010.A particularlyfruitful area of cooperation has been space exploration. The issuesthat have been identified by the EU and Russia as priorities for theperiod 2009-2010 include joint research projects in four specific areasof Earth Observation (agriculture, forestry, earthquake precursors andArctic regions), participation of European and Russian researchentities in the FP7 Space 3rd call (the EU’s mechanism for fundingspace research), geostationary satellites for navigation systems, aswell as cooperation on space launchers and on a future crew spacetransportation system.syrquin@013.net The author is the head of the International Department at GSCB Law Firm
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