The Stalemate in EU-Russia Relations

Abstract

In terms of Russia’s relations with Europe and the “near abroad,” 2006 was a year of trade wars. In early January at the height of an unusually cold winter, a “gas war” between Russia and Ukraine led to a shortage of gas supplies for customers in both Eastern and Western Europe. Later, EU-Russia relations were complicated by further disputes, from Russia’s unwillingness to ratify the European Energy Charter to the EU’s concern over Russia’s ban on wine imports from Georgia and Moldova. In November 2006, an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki failed to open talks on the new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) due to a Polish veto in protest of the Russian ban on the import of Polish meat. On top of all things, Russia threatened to ban all food imports from the EU on January 1, 2007, because of the unsettled phytosanitary issues with new EU member states Bulgaria and Romania.

A plague o’ both your houses!

—Mercutio; Hamlet

This chapter is based on research carried out by the author at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in the framework of the project on “Russia’s European Choice” in 2005–6. See Medvedev 2006.