France hoping to broker EU deal with Russia

France hoping to broker EU deal with Russia

PARIS, May 29 – France hopes the European Union can reach a deal with Russia on a new strategic partnership by the end of 2008, Francois Fillon, French prime minister, said on Thursday after talks with Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart.

Mr Putin is on his first foreign trip since taking up the post of prime minister, showing he still has significant clout in shaping Russia's foreign relations.

Russia is looking to France to help it improve its strained relations with the 27-nation European Union and Mr Putin won assurances from Mr Fillon that Paris was ready to play its part.

“During the French presidency we would like to move forward and why not even conclude the strategic partnership agreement between Russia and the European Union,” Mr Fillon told reporters. France takes over the rotating EU presidency in July.

Negotiations on the new Partnership and Co-operation Agreement (PCA), which covers energy, trade and political ties, are expected to start in June after an 18-month deadlock caused by disagreements between Russia and eastern EU members.

"We have agreed that we will together work for the earliest beginning of talks on a new strategic partnership ... We paid a lot of attention to it during talks," Mr Putin said. Most observers argue the deal will take at least 18 months to conclude.

The Russian government spokesman later said that reaching the deal with the EU this year was possible if it were to have a broad framework nature while more specific issues would be regulated by separate individual agreements.

"If we stick to this interpretation we can quite possibly reach positive results," Dmitry Peskov said.

Mr Putin had dinner with President Nicolas Sarkozy later on Thursday in a departure from protocol for prime ministerial visits that underlines Putin's continuing importance after his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, replaced him as president this month.

As prime minister, Mr Putin is in charge of Russia's $1,7 trillion economy. Many political analysts say they believe Putin and not Mr Medvedev is, at least for now, taking the lead in politics and foreign policy.

Mr Medvedev's first official trip to the West as president will be to Germany in June. In France, Putin dodged a question about human right violations – another thorny issue in Russia-EU relationship – saying it was now Medvedev's responsibility.

"Such kind of questions are in the competence of the President of the Russian Federation," Mr Putin said, adding that media reports about human rights violations in Russia were grossly exaggerated and used as a tool for political pressure.

The EU is Russia's largest trade partner, accounting for over half of all Russian trade. France lags EU members Germany, Italy and even Poland in trading with Russia but is determined to catch up.

Moscow wants a partnership accord that would give Russian goods access to the EU's internal market, visa-free travel for its citizens and cooperation in areas such as science, technology and education.

The EU, which imports a quarter of its gas from Russia, wants a stable energy supply. For the bloc that also means greater access for its firms to Russia's energy sector, something Moscow had been reluctant to concede.

Another obstacle to the EU-Russia pact is an impasse over Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation, caused by an increase in Russian raw timber export duties which Brussels says is in violation of an earlier bilateral entry deal.

Russia's hopes to join the WTO this year are rapidly waning amid mounting disagreements with EU members Finland and Sweden, hit by a Russian timber duty hike while ex-Soviet Georgia is blocking the talks over Russia's support for its breakaway regions.

The WTO rules would regulate many trade issues not covered by the framework agreement between Russia and the EU and will diminish the need for separate arrangements. Mr Fillon said France backed Russia's membership push.

"It is necessary for Russia to enter WTO as soon as possible and we support it," he said.