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In my talk today I would like to focus on recent developments in EU-Russia relations, and in particular to look at the recent accomplishments in our work together, in particular focusing on the last EU-Russia summit in Brussels on 3 October. This summit was an extremely important event for the reasons I will explain, but it built upon previous summits, particularly the Sixth summit in Paris in October and the seventh summit under the Swedish presidency in May. I think what we can see through recent events is a sequence of actions and initiatives which are bringing the EU Russia closely together. Thus, rather than look back fifty years I am going to look back two weeks.
As I have said, I believe that the Eighth summit in Brussels was really key step in moving from dialogue towards a real genuine political and economic partnership between the EU and Russia, or at least setting the basis for that more firmly. The reason for that is because the summit outlined a series of concrete cooperation initiatives which can bring us closer together. I think also it reflects a much better recognition of the need to solve some longstanding problems and issues some of which were raised for example during the Swedish presidency.
Of course, the summit in October took place against an exceptional backdrop of international efforts worldwide to build a coalition against terrorism. As background to the summit there was a strong recognition by the EU side of the boldness of the policy of President Putin to support the coalition. This policy, as you know, includes matters such as sharing information, providing an air corridor for humanitarian assistance, and acquiescence in the use of military bases in Central Asia. So I think this is an important backdrop to the work that was undertaken. Reflecting this bold policy was the Declaration on international terrorism that was adopted at the summit, emphasising the need to cooperate to combat international terrorism under the rule of law and under the auspices of the UN Charter, to work together to block financing of terrorist organizations and to study additional ways and means to exchange information.
Now of course one way to respond to these global political and security challenges, including terrorism, is to reinforce cooperation mechanisms. In this light, an important development at the Summit, which had been under consideration for some time and had certainly been strongly desired by the Russian side, was intensification of political dialogue and discussion. What the leaders decided was to set up monthly meetings between the EU's Political and Security Committee in Brussels and representatives from Russia to look at the evolution of European security and defence policy, as well as crisis management and prevention. It also envisages additional consultations depending on events which could be more frequent. So what we are moving towards is real time consultations between Russia and the European Union on key political and security issues on a much more regular basis, and on a much more timely basis than hitherto. This development builds upon existing structures and is an important evolution. I would point out also that this intensity of consultations does not exist with many or other key partners of the EU.
Turning to the economic side, the summit was very significant because a number of decisions of longstanding significance were taken. Just to recall that Russia is the EU's major trading partner: today 35% of Russia's trade is with the European Union, and this will increase to over 50% when the EU enlarges to 26 or 27 countries. There were two particularly important achievements at the summit. First of all, the agreement to accelerate efforts to provide for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. Concretely, the European Union is going to formulate a definitive list of requests on market access to Russia in goods and services by the end of the year. Next year the work can begin on drawing up the final conditions for Russia's accession, the so-called "Protocol of accession". The United States is following the same track. We made clear at the summit that our demands on Russia would be reasonable and balanced.
Looking at this more generally, I would say that the accession of Russia to the WTO is not just important in economic terms, but also because it would mark a major first step for Russia to integrate into international economic organisations where sovereignty is shared. In his recent article, Mr Glaziev, chairman of the Duma Committee for Industry and Entrepreneurship, made the point that this was the key element of Russia's accession to the WTO: yes, accession does mean ceding sovereignty, but it also means deriving important benefits. This is new for Russia and I think is very important because of that.
Leaders also took initiative to try and solve outstanding trade disputes. A report is now going to be drawn up for the next summit in May, in which our leaders expect to see progress on some of the difficult questions. From the EU side, there are number of outstanding matters where Russia is not in compliance with existing obligations under our Partnership and Cooperation Agreement - such as in the insurance field - and we would like to see these solved.
Now looking even more long term, at the Summit the leaders decided to set up a High Level Group to develop a concept of a Common European Economic Space between Europe and Russia. This is really looking at the situation after Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization. We will look together at what should be the economic relationship between Russia and the EU in the future, what it should consist of, to what degree should Russia attempt to, for example, approximate its legislation to that of the European Union (we believe that this to be the core of the initiative), what sector should we focus on, what type of relationship should be established in the future. Coordinators on both sides have been set up: Commissioner Patten from the EU side and Deputy Prime Minister Khristenko from the Russian side.
Important stock also took place in the framework of the energy dialogue that was set up a year ago. This is designed to look at the energy security in Europe both in EU and in Russia, and to look at conditions whereby Europe could envisage greater investment in Russia's oil and gas sectors. A series of long- and short-term follow up initiatives have been agreed in order to develop this partnership further. It is obvious that in our economic relations energy plays a key role. The EU recognises Russia as important reliable partner and a growing supplier of the energy products to the EU. I should point out that our market is the greatest integrated energy market in the world. So we have complementary interests.
The leaders discussed, of course, also another important question between the EU and Russia, - enlargement. Particularly, of course, in this context comes up the question of Kaliningrad. The key issues here are visas, the problem of cross-border movements, energy, fishing. We have agreed to try and accelerate the work, to look at all the practical problems and to begin to see if we can find the practical solutions, to draw out an action plan to deal with the questions. The question of visas is obviously very important, it is linked to the movement of people. The Commission is working on this intensively now with a view to coming forward with some ideas in the future.
Let me finish my quick review of the summit by saying that science and technology cooperation was also a focus. Some agreements were signed on nuclear safety and nuclear fusion as well as a memorandum to develop our relationship in the field of space.
Finally, of course, as in any EU-Russian meeting, the question of Chechnya came up. The communiqué refers to the need to support Russia's efforts to achieve a political solution to the conflict. Russia recognized the important humanitarian aid that the European Union has given to Chechnya and surrounding regions - Ingushetia, Dagestan. I would point out that we have granted more than 50 million euros since the second conflict began in 1999. However, the conditions for granting that humanitarian aid are not really satisfactory, and we have raised this for the number of occasions for the Russian authorities. The conditions should be made better so that the aid could be distributed more efficiently.
If you all look at all the components of the summit - on the political side and the economic side - these are very substantial and very important. A few words now about the instruments in which we are trying to achieve some of the objectives that have been outlined by our leaders.
First of all the Tacis programme - as you know, Tacis is the European Union's technical assistance instrument to facilitate the restructuring of the Russian economy, to create a functioning market economy in Russia. We have granted more than 2.2 billion euros - about 200 million euros a year - for the last ten years and we shall continue to do so. The focus of this programme now is very closely geared to Russia's economic reform programme which the European Union supports. We want to see the programme to be brought to successful conclusion, we think its direction is right. The key thing we are looking for is to create better conditions for foreign investment, which we think Russia would benefit from. One of the targets of the Tacis programme is to give assistance in the field of judicial reform, administrative reform, institutional reform - areas where, in our view, still a great deal needs to be done to create a better environment for business.
So Tacis in monetary terms is by far the most important instrument. We also have other instruments such as a programme for promoting democracy and human rights in Russia. The European Union under its common foreign and security policy has a common action programme to contribute to efforts of plutonium disposition and to remove chemical weapons. The destruction of the 40 thousand tons of chemical weapons stored in this country is a huge task, and the EU and its member states are contributing in important ways to this effort.
Finally, an important event which will affect our relations in the future is the imminent arrival of the Euro in monetary form - as notes and coins. This was not raised at the summit, but of course this causes a growing interest in Russia. We ourselves, our Delegation, are going to be undertaking a campaign of information about this. Euros will be available in Russia from the 1 January through commercial banks, through "обмен валюты". We believe this change will be a successful one for the 12 countries inside in Europe, but also will be of interest in Russia as well.
Going beyond the instruments and coming back to the themes that I began with, the future degree of integration between the European Union and Russia, whatever the form it will take, will be determined by a number of key factors. The first and the most important is the political will of both sides to achieve real results. In my view, all the signs are that Russia, President Putin, and his administration is looking towards Europe, is turning towards Europe. Our task now is to try to make these new mechanisms that have been drawn up at the summit work, make the mechanism of the real time political consultations work, draw up an action plan for a common European economic space, accelerate Russia's accession to the WTO on commercially viable terms, and promote energy cooperation. All these are practical real steps that can integrate us more closely together. Of course all these questions cannot be decided in a vacuum. What are going to be other influences? Without going into details, I would say that, obviously, Russia's relations with NATO is a very important element of the full picture, Russia's relations with the United States, Russia's way of interaction with the coalition to fight against terrorism. These will undoubtedly impact on the future of our relationship. Most of all, I think, what will determine the degree of Russia's integration would be in the end a rather cold perception on both sides of the benefits that can result from us coming closer together. So I want to conclude by saying that we have set ourselves a very ambitious programme of work. It is a programme that reflects the degree of closeness of the EU and Russia at the current time. The framework and a course is set. What we now need to do is to ensure effective implementation. It is a big task for everyone involved in the EU and Russia, but I'm sure we can succeed, given political will.