European Forum

Russia, Germany suggest creation of high-level Russia-EU security committee

This week (5 June) Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested to consider the creation of a Russia-EU committee on foreign policy and security at ministerial level. Merkel and Medvedev made the proposal at a joint press conference following bilateral talks in Germany. According to local media, the 10-hours lasting meeting was attended by the two leaders and a few advisors.

"There is now a committee of ambassadors in Brussels that deals with security issues," Ms Merkel said, referring to EU Council's Political and Security Committee (PSC). "This committee could be further developed, so that there is regular and ongoing contact not only at ambassador level, but between the EU and Russia at the foreign minister level."

Scepticism
Some EU governments have given a cautious welcome to proposals for the new EU-Russia security committee, as more details about the surprise initiative have emerged after the two countries circulated a five-point plan on Monday (8 June).

The Russian-German memorandum envisages a new body bringing together EU Foreign Relations chief Catherine Ashton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to "exchange views on current issues of international politics and security." The committee would also "develop guidelines for joint civil/military operations" and "make recommendations" on "the various conflicts and crisis situations, to the resolution of which Russia and EU are contributing within relevant international formats." Point four zooms in on the frozen conflict in Transnistria, Moldova, envisaging: "joint activities of Russia and the EU, which will ensure a seamless transition from the current situation to the final stage."

Senior officials in the EU Council and the EU Commission told international media that they had not been formally consulted by Germany or Russia prior to the announcement. But the idea did not come out of the blue either. "We had heard things vaguely from Berlin over the past couple of weeks," one official said.

A senior diplomat from one EU country said that Russia's willingness to work more closely with the EU on conflict resolution is "very positive." The source pointed to Russian air support for EU member states' soldiers in Chad in 2008 and noted that the recent EU-Russia summit in Rostov-on-Don also made progress in the field with a bilateral agreement on sharing classified documents.

Crowded agenda
The German-Russian proposal would contribute another layer of meetings to an already crowded EU-Russia diplomatic agenda, prompting some EU countries to question its added value, however.

The EU and Russia currently meet twice a year at summit level. Ms Ashton and Mr Lavrov meet at least three times a year. The chair of the EU's PSC meets with Russia's ambassador to the EU once a month. Numerous expert-level events, such as a twice-yearly human rights dialogue, also contribute to making the EU-Russia bilateral calendar the busiest of all its agendas with third countries.

For its part, the pro-EU Moldovan government said in a statement that the German-Russian plan "opens promising perspectives" on Transnistria. But it added that any fresh efforts must "respect ... the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity." Previous Russian solutions for the conflict aimed to give Russian soldiers the right to stay on Moldovan territory indefinitely and to hand sweeping political powers in a re-unified state to the Transnistrian authorities, which have strong links to the Russian secret service. The Russian peace plans were put forward in 2003 and again in 2007 but rejected by Chisinau on both occasions following EU advice.

The initiative comes less than a week after an EU-Russia summit in Rostov-on-Don in which the EU rejected Russian calls for a speedy visa-free travel deal but in which the two sides agreed a brief joint statement on EU help for modernising Russia's economy.

Sources: EU Observer; Ria Novosti