Poland stalls EU-Moscow partnership

Poland on Monday blocked the start of talks on a wide-ranging partnership deal between the European Union and Russia until Moscow commits to opening up its oil and gas pipeline network.

Warsaw’s hard line threatens to scupper an EU-Russia summit this month at which talks over a partnership pact covering trade, energy, investment, human rights and mutual recognition of standards were due to begin.

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The issue will be discussed by foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday but officials from the EU’s Finnish presidency said that they were waiting to see if Warsaw would consider a more flexible line.

Piotr Wozniak, Poland’s economy minister, said on Friday that his country was insisting Russia sign the transit protocol of the energy charter treaty, an international agreement signed in 1994 that governs cross-border trade and investment in the sector.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has consistently refused to sign the protocol, which would require Moscow to open its gas pipelines to third parties, or ratify the treaty, which would force him to end the monopoly supply position of Gazprom, the state-controlled gas company.

Mr Wozniak said the negotiations on a new EU-Russia partnership deal, which would update a series of agreements between Brussels and Moscow, were the best opportunity to persuade Mr Putin to change his mind.

“We feel very unsafe in terms of energy supply in Europe,” he told Brussels-based journalists.

After a year when the EU agenda has been largely dominated by difficult energy ties with Russia, which supplies 25 per cent of the bloc’s energy, the spat indicates how disunited member states remain on relations with Moscow.

Poland’s concerns partly reflect their fears that the European Commission and the German presidency of the EU, which starts in 2007, could negotiate a deal with Moscow that runs against Warsaw’s interests.

Suspicion of German motives in Warsaw run deep, notably over the deal between Berlin and Moscow to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing Poland. Mr Wozniak said Germany should “forget it”.

He said there was “no rush” to get a new EU-Russia agreement, pointing out that the existing “partnership and co-operation agreement” could be automatically extended when it expired at the end of the year.

Poland’s opposition to the start of talks with Russia also reflects its anger over Moscow’s ban on Polish meat and vegetable exports. Lithuania is the only other country to express doubts about agreeing the EU negotiating mandate for the Russian talks.

Some EU diplomats have expressed annoyance with Poland’s tough conditions for the start of talks with Russia. “We hope it will be possible for Poland to lift its reservations,” a European Commission spokeswoman said on Friday.

Some argue that although Russia has shown itself unwilling to ratify the energy charter treaty, Mr Putin had suggested he might agree to equivalent measures to those foreseen in the treaty.

Even if foreign ministers fail to break the impasse on Monday, there is still time for the EU to agree a common stance before the summit with Russia next week.
Source:ft.com