France vs Russia

In a move which was partly an audacious bluff and partly a complex legalistic gambit, the French president faced down determined opposition from Lithuania and Poland to open the door to normalizing the EU-Russia relationship three months after the Georgian conflict.
The European Union's French presidency has said the bloc is in a position to relaunch Partnership and Cooperation Treaty talks with Moscow that were broken off in the wake of the war between Russia and Georgia.
The announcement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Russia has complied with EU demands in Georgia stunned some Eastern European leaders who were in Brussels for an EU crisis summit on the global economy.
The talks are now all but certain to resume on November 14 when the EU and Russia meet for a summit in the French city of Nice.

Eastern European Opposition

In a move which was partly an audacious bluff and partly a complex legalistic gambit, the French president faced down determined opposition from Lithuania and Poland to open the door to normalizing the EU-Russia relationship three months after the Georgian conflict.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus had arrived at the summit threatening to veto any such move. In an article published on November 6 in the Brussels weekly, "European Voice," he said it would be a "disaster" to act before Russian forces had quit all of Georgian territory.
Adamkus had the public backing of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, and the sympathy of a number of other leaders.
Addressing a post-summit news conference on November 7, Sarkozy effectively said Adamkus and his supporters misunderstand what they had agreed to on September 1, when an emergency EU summit broke off talks.
"Let me remind you that these negotiations were never suspended -- because [the EU] points the way here -- because if there had been a suspension, there would have had to be a summit decision," Sarkozy said. "Together with [European Commission] President [Jose Manuel] Barroso, we simply postponed the date."
However, the EU said in a summit statement on September 1 that "till troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to August 7, meetings on the negotiation of the Partnership Agreement [with Russia] will be postponed."
As it turns out, "postponement" can be read to mean that EU member states never withdrew their prior underlying consent for the negotiations, leaving it up to the bloc's executive -- the presidency and the European Commission -- to proceed as it sees fit.
Any decision as momentous as this one requires some justification, however. Recognizing this, Sarkozy on November 7 resorted to a fudge -- or something which unkind observers might be inclined to see as an act of diplomatic vandalism.
He said Russia had met all the commitments it had undertaken under EU mediation with respect to Georgia: they implemented a ceasefire, allowed EU observers to deploy, and launched international talks on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Russian Withdrawal
But, most controversially, Sarkozy also said Russia has fully complied with the requirement to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions, as required by the EU-mediated accords of August 12 and September 8.
"The second commitment -- the retreat of Russian forces to pre-conflict borders before the crisis on August 8. Has this been fulfilled? Yes," Sarkozy said.
Everything hinges on Sarkozy's substitution of the word "borders" for the original -- and correct -- term, "lines." According to Sarkozy's interpretation, Russia was never obliged to remove any troops from the separatist regions.
Georgian claims to areas held by its forces before the conflict within Abkhazia and South Ossetia are thus also without merit.
The impression that Sarkozy's remarks -- appearing as they did as an afterthought in the margins of a summit devoted to an entirely different subject -- are part of a carefully crafted master plan is borne out by reports that behind closed doors, the French leader placated his opponents with a different view.
One official present at the meeting said Sarkozy had assured his EU colleagues he would express the bloc's dissatisfaction with Moscow's insufficient compliance with the bloc's terms when the two sides meet in Nice on November 14.
The French diplomatic offensive was assisted by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who said he had warned the Lithuanian and Polish leaders that, if prevented from acting in concert, individual member states would start striking separate deals with Moscow.
Aiming his news conference remarks directly at Warsaw and Vilnius, Barroso said, "You may not like the common EU position entirely, but it is in your own interest to have one rather than three or four different positions."
Both Barroso and Sarkozy represent a school of thought within the EU which holds that keeping lines of communication open with Moscow is crucial for the bloc's broader interests, which range from securing energy provisions to cooperation with Russia in the UN Security Council on issues such as Iran.
Conceding defeat, Lithuania's and Poland's backers in the EU said they would now set their sights on the November 10 meeting of the foreign ministers in a bid to secure a joint statement which makes clear that although the partnership talks will continue, Moscow has not fully met EU conditions.
Fearing intractable divisions, France is resisting the adoption of any EU statement at the meeting.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told RFE/RL that he and like-minded leaders within the EU will also strive to get the bloc to acknowledge that pragmatic cooperation, not a fully fledged partnership, is the most it can hold out for Russia.
"We can talk about cooperation with any country in the world. In Russia's case, we're not in a position now, considering its military attack on a sovereign neighbor, to talk about a partnership or the sharing of common values," Ansip said.
Adamkus emerged from the summit insisting that there could be no talk of renewed partnership talks with Russia before it has withdrawn its troops from all of Georgian territory, but he did not elaborate.

EU presidency cautious about resuming Russia talks

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was cautious Monday about the likelihood of the European Union quickly resuming talks with Russia on a new strategic partnership.
"We are going to discuss it again today," he said, before chairing talks with his EU counterparts in Luxembourg. But he noted that a ceasefire deal ending the Russia-Georgia conflict in August was not being entirely respected.

While still contesting Russia’s backing for breakaway Georgian territories, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the ministers are expected to decide that Russia has kept its commitments by withdrawing troops from a buffer zone around the contested territories.
However, Kouchner and his EU counterparts have suggested that the decision to resume the partnership talks be taken immediately.
Kouchner reaffirmed that Russia had withdrawn its troops from buffer zones near the two breakaway Georgian regions, in line with a French-brokered ceasefire agreement.
"The Russians have withdrawn, and apart from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there are no more Russia soldiers in Georgia," he said.
"We postponed" the partnership negotiations at an emergency summit on Georgia on Sept. 1, called after Russia recognized the independence of rebel Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he recalled.
But he said that of the six-points in the peace agreement reached on Aug. 12 between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, "we have fulfilled between two and three" points.
"Problems remain and we will analyze them," he said. "This is not something that can be resolved in two minutes."
Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, who is also head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said the decision could be taken just ahead of an EU-Russia summit scheduled for Nov. 14.
German deputy foreign minister Guenter Gloser, also arriving for the Luxembourg talks, said "there will always be some people who think the EU is doing Russia a favor" with the negotiations.
"But we must ask whether (the EU) would be doing itself a favor by blocking relations," given, in particular, the importance of Russian fuel supplies to Europe.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband welcomed the Russian troop withdrawal from the "buffer zones" as "an important step forward" and highlighted the fact that European monitors were able to operate "in a free and open way" in Georgia.
While saying the partnership deal with Russia could be addressed by the EU ministers he added that "at the moment we should be focusing on ensuring that all those elements that were agreed in September, including the Geneva talks, get going with proper speed," he added.
International talks on the Geneva situation, held under UN, OSCE and EU auspices, will begin on Wednesday.
There were, however, some more reticent voices coming from the Baltic states, Poland and Sweden.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt recalled that European leaders had agreed on Sept. 1 to freeze the talks until Russian forces withdraw to the positions they held before the outbreak of hostilities in Georgia in early August.
"If you look at the map they aren’t in the positions they had prior to August 7," he told reporters.
"They have made the withdrawal primarily from the buffer zones but there are areas they are occupying now where they were not on the 7th of August."
He refused to say whether Sweden would oppose the resumption of the talks.
Russian troops moved into Georgia on Aug. 8 after Georgia’s offensive to try to bring South Ossetia back under government control.
EU leaders called off talks on a strategic partnership agreement with Russia at a special summit on Sept. 1 and one week later Russia agreed to bring its troops out of the buffer zones.