Spotlight Europe — Prospects for a new EU-Russia Agreement

The latest EU-Russia-Summit on 27th June 2008 marks a breakthrough in their relations. The planned negotiations on a new strategic partnership between the two actors were stalled for nearly two years. Now all member states have agreed on a broad negotiating mandate for the Commission. After the Irish 'No' to the Lisbon Treaty the talks with Russia become a test case for the EU s capacity to act as a global player.

Prospects for a new EU-Russia Agreement

In the current spotlight the four contributors describe the expectations associated with a new Partnership Agreement. Fraser Cameron of the EU-Russia Centre sheds some light on what is going on in Brussels, whereas Andrei Zagorski of the Moscow State Institute for International Relations spells out what is at stake as far as Russia is concerned. Piotr Buras, Visiting Fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, explains the Polish background, and Cornelius Ochmann of the Bertelsmann Stiftung gives an optimistic assessment from Berlin. Although there are four different ways of looking at the current state of affairs, on one point the contributors are in total agreement. It is time for the negotiations on the new Partnership Agreement to commence.

As always we hope that you will find the present "spotlight europe" interesting and stimulating. You need Adobe Reader in order to display and print out these Adobe PDF files. Editions of "spotlight europe" can be downloaded from: www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/spotlight

№7(24), 2008