Prerequisites for future EU-Russia agreement

 MEPs favour  more ambitious trade, visa and cooperation agreements with Russia,

Prerequisites  for future EU-Russia agreement

MEPs favour  more ambitious trade, visa and cooperation agreements with Russia, but only  if it does more to protect basic human rights, e.g. by ending  „politically-motivated court decisions” against opposition leaders,  removing curbs on press freedom, pulling its troops out of Georgia and  allowing gay parades. This was the key message, in a resolution passed on  Thursday, to government leaders at the EU-Russia summit in Nizhny   Novgorod.

Aware of the two sides’  interdependence in economic, energy and political relations, MEPs hope that  the summit in Nizhny Novgorod (Western Russia), which started on 9 June, will  give fresh impetus to negotiations for a new Partnership and Cooperation  Agreement with Moscow, the recently-agreed roadmap for visa-free travel between  the two regions and EU support for Russia’s bid to join the World Trade  Organization. However, in exchange, Russia must tackle sensitive  trade and human rights issues, they add.

Repression  of opposition leaders, corruption of judges

MEPs criticise „political  interference” in Russia  and the „politically-motivated court decision” against Mikhaiel  Khordorkovsky. They also urge it to investigate further the incarceration and  death of Sergei Magnitsky and other political prisoners.

They also object to frequent restrictions on the  freedom of opposition parties to register for the elections, such as the  December 2011 Duma elections.

Finally the resolution  voices concern about the lack of media freedom and of freedom of assembly, as  shown by the decision to ban a gay pride march in Moscow for the sixth consecutive year.

Visa  policy and conflict with Georgia

The political groups take  note of the recently-agreed roadmap for visa-free travel between the EU and Russia,  which, they say, must be „based on a step-by-step approach” and  bring real practical progress, they say. In any event, EU foreign policy High  Representative Catherine Ashton must persuade Russia  to cease issuing passports to citizens of the occupied Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia  is urged to respect its agreement with Georgia and withdraw its troops  from the occupied Georgian territories.

Energy:  avoiding another Fukushima

„The supply of  natural resources should not be used as a political tool”, stress MEPs,  who urge governments to look for a „balanced trilateral  EU-Russia-Ukraine solution on future gas flows to the EU” and make a  joint commitment at the summit to run ambitious stress-tests on nuclear power  plants so as to avoid situations such as the nuclear melt-down crisis at the  Fukushima plant in Japan. An amendment by the Green group calling for the  „immediate shutdown of Chernobyl-type nuclear reactors still in  use” was rejected (180 votes in favour, 409 against and 25 abstentions).  

Accession to WTO

Finally, MEPs hope the summit will  help to overcome the remaining obstacles to Russia’s joining the World Trade  Organisation (WTO), including Moscow’s ban on all imports of EU vegetables  and its failure so far to rectify „trade irritants, such as the  Russia-Kazakhstan-Belarus customs union, which has led to higher consolidated  tariffs”.