Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-713-000"
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"en.20110608.26.3-713-000"2
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"Madam President, today’s exchange of views was indeed very useful for adding a final touch to our summit preparations and you can rest assured that I will convey the key messages to the High Representative and Vice-President Ashton who will debrief the Presidents and Commissioner Karel De Gucht.
Madam President, honourable Members, the European Union and Russia are partners. Partners should talk to each other frequently, they should try to achieve consensus where possible, but should not hesitate to openly address more problematic aspects. We have talked about some of these problematic aspects today. They should be addressed at the summit and, wherever possible, we should look for solutions or at least improvement.
I have already mentioned the ENP review. I strongly believe that one of the added values of that reviewed Neighbourhood Policy is that the universally applicable values and principles reflected there are not only applicable to small and medium-sized neighbouring countries.
I have heard many of you calling for continuing engagement with Russia, calling for the relationship and coordination with the Russian Federation to be further developed, but I also heard calls for more democracy and less corruption. I also heard a call for no harassment, which was reported in Nizhny Novgorod, although I respect the role of the Russian Federation in ensuring security for the summit.
We have seen that we have convergent views on many subjects. We agree on the key importance of our relations with Russia both bilaterally and in multilateral contexts, whether regional or global. We agree that it is a multifaceted relationship in which economic, social and environmental issues, human rights and rule of law, security aspects and political cooperation are all of paramount importance.
We should not expect a resolution of all pending problems at this summit – and yes, we will raise the issue of vegetables. But we should aim to make significant progress in a number of areas.
Let me comment on some of these areas. First: elections. The Russian authorities are well aware that the European Union will be following the 2011 and 2012 electoral processes very closely. Should there be irregularities in the upcoming elections, these issues would have to be addressed. Right now, we are calling on Russia to respect obligations it has undertaken in the context of the Council of Europe, the United Nations and the OSCE regarding free and fair elections, and to cooperate well with ODIHR to ensure appropriate monitoring. We will place a special emphasis on the issue of the registration of new parties and access to the electoral process.
Second: I took note of Parliament’s concerns with regard to the human rights situation in Russia; we share most of them and these issues will be raised with the Russian President at the summit. The main forum for addressing human rights and rule-of-law issues is the European Union-Russia human rights consultations. This is an important instrument and its potential should be fully used. Unfortunately, this is not yet the case and the European Union will therefore stress the need to have an honest and useful dialogue for which a review of the consultations’ modalities is necessary.
Third: the Partnership for Modernisation. I fully agree with the honourable Members that the Partnership for Modernisation should be broadly based. The coordinators will present in Nizhny Novgorod the second programme report on the implementation of the partnership and, as you will see, the rule of law is at the very core of this initiative and we have concrete projects in this area.
Point four: Russia is the neighbour of our neighbours, and I think Nizhny Novgorod would be an excellent opportunity to refer to the recently adopted ENP review document and, with reference to this document, to make sure that we are transparent in our policy vis-à-vis the neighbours we share with Russia. This is an opportunity – based
on that transparency – to make our point that caring about the well-being of the neighbours we share is a win-win process. I think it will also be a good opportunity, based on some new ideas in that ENP review, to talk about a strengthened cooperation to address the protracted conflicts in our neighbourhood.
Point five: the question of energy cooperation will be addressed at the summit. We need transparent, fair and competitive energy relations and we will raise our concerns with the Russian President. We will emphasise the need for further reforms, as I stressed in my opening remarks, in the Russian electricity and gas sector with a view to establishing a level playing field."@en1
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