April 28, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 10, 1428

BERLIN: Germany’s hopes to use its EU presidency to strengthen the bloc’s ties with an increasingly wealthy and confident Russia appear headed for failure as Russia takes an increasingly confrontational stance towards the West.

Among the issues weighing on Russia’s ties with Europe are Czech and Polish plans to host a US missile shield on their territories, the deterioration of the rule of law in Russia, a meat dispute with Poland and the Kremlin’s increasing use of its vast energy resources as a political weapon, analysts say.

Germany’s foreign ministry last year prepared an internal paper outlining what was to be a new “Ostpolitik” – policy towards eastern Europe – that would aim to forge closer ties to Russia, countries in the southern Caucasus and central Asia.

The centrepiece was to be the renegotiation of the EU’s “Partnership and Cooperation Agreement” with Russia, which expires this year. The new pact should be a sweeping agreement with “more clearly formulated fundamental goals of energy policy cooperation with Russia,” the paper said.

With two months left in Germany’s European Union presidency, no tangible progress has been made, as Poland continues to block the 27-nation bloc’s negotiations with Moscow due to Russia’s 16-month-old ban on meat imports from Poland.

“It now looks as if Germany’s EU presidency will end with a fiasco regarding its Ostpolitik plans,” said Alexander Rahr, a Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Poland’s refusal to withdraw its veto on EU negotiations with Russia is understandable, but Warsaw will eventually have to compromise in the interest of improving EU ties with Russia, the bloc’s top energy supplier, analysts say.

“This won’t last. They can’t do this for years. They can’t isolate themselves and blockade and polarise Europe,” said Hajo Funke, a political scientist at the Free University in Berlin.

There is much more to the issue than meat. Poland is deeply suspicious of what it sees as Germany’s and other EU member states’ overly accommodating approach to Moscow. Analysts say the Poles are still seething about a Baltic gas pipeline which will ship gas directly from Russia to Germany, bypassing Poland.“Poland is punishing Germany in a way for going over Poland’s head,” Rahr said.

European diplomats in Berlin say some officials at Germany’s foreign ministry are frustrated by what they see as Poland’s stubbornness. But they also say Germany’s foreign ministry is afraid to get tough with Russia for fear of sparking a backlash.

One Polish official said it was important not to let Moscow dictate terms to the EU. He suggested Moscow was playing a waiting game to see if the bloc would gang up on Poland and force it to back down, allowing Moscow to win a major victory.

As if the meat dispute was not enough, Poland has complicated Russian ties with Europe with plans to allow part of a US missile shield on its territory.

The plan to place 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic to protect Europe against countries like Iran has infuriated Moscow, which sees the shield as a security threat and encroachment on its sphere of influence.

Russia is getting support on this issue from Germany.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a Social Democrat (SPD), has warned the shield could spark a new arms race and undermine global non-proliferation efforts. Merkel’s conservative Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung is the only German cabinet minister to have publicly backed the idea.

“Overall German foreign policy remains very pro-Russian. The SPD-controlled foreign ministry, in particular, is very reluctant to criticise Russia,” said Charles Grant, director of the London-based Centre for European Reform think-tank.—Reuters