Against a background of stifled disagreements, the Summit between the European Union and Russia, held in Helsinki on Nov. 24, finished with rather disappointing results.
The Summit was to allow EU negotiations with its Russian partner, particularly concerning its embargo on Polish meat. Jose Manuel Duaro Barraso, the president of the European Commission, thought the boycott to be "disproportionate from a sanitary point of view."
In response, Poland refused to negotiate on a large European-Russian partnership agreement on energy supply. European commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner made assurances that Europe-Russia relations were in no way "spoiled" by Poland's block.
On the other hand, she also specified that the EU was waiting for "Russia to accept principles like transparency, market access, and reciprocity," she added.
The Europeans have increasingly less choice to not negotiate with the Russian giant. Indeed, the EU buys more than 40 percent of its gas imports and more than 30 percent of its petroleum from Moscow. The future partnership agreement at stake in Helinski could take several years to negotiate according to European diplomats, because it needs to include a chapter on energy, which is crucial for the Europeans, who are becoming more and more worried about their dependence on Russian hydrocarbons.
Vladimir Putin has meanwhile conceded to lifting the taxes required by his country for flying over Siberia. This decision was, for the Europeans, part of the sine qua non conditions of Russia's membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). These taxes, whose abolition the airline companies have already demanded for the last 20 years, represent on average $350 million each year for European companies and in 2006 even reached $430 billion, according to European commissioner for transport Jacques Barrot.
But this Russian concession reinforced the idea that Helsinki was above all a business summit to the point of glossing over the different contestations associated with Moscow.
Human Rights
In matters of negotiation, everything must be done to not jostle one's partner, and the EU understands this well. The European leaders above all did not plan on entering into details with the Russian president about the poisoning of the former anti-Putin Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, who died on Nov. 23 in London. When references were made to this affair, Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanden responded that he was "sorry" for his family, but did not know much about it.
Directly incriminated by those close to Litvinenko, Vladimir Putin replied to journalists: "Nothing proves a violent death. Absolutely nothing. There is no basis to speak of assassination."
In addition, when another journalist asked him if the investigation into the murder of the journalist investigating crimes in Chechnya, Anna Politkovskaia, was progressing, he simply eluded the question and poked at his European partners: "It's a problem for all of us. If only you could see what the mafia does in other European countries."
Human rights organizations of course seized the opportunity at the Summit to remind the EU of Moscow's deviations regarding the most fundamental human rights issues. Amnesty International asked the EU to send a strong message to President Putin regarding human rights.
In a new report made public on Nov. 22 entitled Torture and Forced "Confessions" in Detention , Amnesty International describes the use of torture in Russian detention centers, relying on witness reports and medical records proving the use of torture in Russia.
The report describes not only blows and electric shocks, but also the use of a "rape room" specially fitted with a metal table equipped with shackles to obtain "confessions" under duress. In 2005, Russian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) counted more than 100 cases of torture in Russia. Dick Oosting, director of the European bureau of Amnesty International, clearly asked the EU "to exhort President Putin to show that he is ready to tackle these problems and to set changes in motion. This step is all the more important since the European Union is in the process of deepening its relations with Russia along the lines of renewing a strategic partnership."
Kidnapping and torture are practiced in Chechnya in all impunity, according to a report by the Russian NGO Memorial and the International Federation of Human Rights, presented on Nov. 22 in Paris and Moscow. Since the beginning of the year, Memorial has recorded 143 kidnappings, of which 54 are missing persons.
Between 2002 and 2005, Memorial, whose work covers only 25 to 30 percent of the Chechnyan territory, identified 1,804 cases of kidnappings, including 986 missing persons and 181 dead whose bodies had been found. The U.N. special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, gave up on a visit to Russia and notably to Chechnya in early October, the Russian authorities having refused his demand to speak in private with detainees. This visit would have been the first made by a special rapporteur on torture to Russia since 1996.
The future of energy in the EU has become a political priority, even to the point of temporarily putting aside the actions of a Russian partner who has now become indispensable.
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