http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/34042dd6-3f7f-11e0-a1ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1ElMxfF8D
By Peter Spiegel in Brussels
Published: February 23 2011 22:41 | Last updated: February 23 2011 22:41
The last time the Russian prime minister met the European Commission president, it did not go well.
At a press conference to wrap up the 2009 summit in Moscow, José Manuel Barroso criticised Russia’s human rights record, only to receive a stinging rebuke from Vladimir Putin, who charged Europe with its own abuses, including mistreating migrant workers.
According to confidential US diplomatic cables obtained by the website WikiLeaks and seen by the Financial Times, the public spat was the tip of a very large iceberg. Two weeks after the summit, a senior European Union official told the US embassy in Moscow that it was evidence of “the widely known personality disconnect between Putin and Barroso”.
The Russian prime minister “views the EU commissioner as the ‘Trojan horse’ of the new EU states”, the cable states, citing the EU official. “The gas war with Ukraine only served to inflame the personal grievance Putin held against the commissioner.”
The two men will hold a summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday for the first time since that ill-fated encounter. Although the link between international disputes and interpersonal differences is often tenuous, Mr Barroso and Mr Putin will conduct an hour-long private session at a time when most of their bilateral agenda – human rights, energy policy, Georgia – remains tense or unresolved, despite years of summits.
Officials on each side claim the two men respect each other – but dozens of US diplomatic cables paint a different picture.
Some of them have already been made public, including one during the height of the 2008 war with Georgia, in which a French diplomat describes Mr Putin’s aides as treating Mr Barroso “harshly and condescendingly”, considering him a “glorified international civil servant ‘not worthy to be in the Tsar’s presence’.”
According to previously unpublished cables, however, the tensions appear to pre-date the war and to stem from Mr Barroso’s effort to wean the EU off Russian gas – even when some older EU member states, particularly Germany, were actively courting the Kremlin.
As early as 2006, according to cables from the US embassy in Vilnius, Mr Barroso took Lithuania’s side in a dispute with Mr Putin about disruptions to crude oil deliveries to a Lithuanian refinery, privately raising the issue during a summit dinner.
“Barroso was the strongest voice on energy policy at the Putin dinner,” one of the cables reads, quoting a senior Lithuanian official. “The Lithuanians had (wrongly) assumed a letter of support ... from Barroso had been an attempt to discharge the energy issue quietly, so they were surprised at the strength of Barroso’s comments.”
Harsh words flew in both directions. A 2008 cable from the Brussels embassy says a top EU official told how Mr Barroso had raised with Mr Putin the possibility of using the EU’s competition laws to blunt Russian energy giant Gazprom’s hold on Europe – but “had his head taken off”.
Following the Georgia war and the 2009 Ukrainian gas crisis, the tensions appear to have worsened.
Less than three weeks after gas began flowing again through Ukrainian pipelines, US diplomats in Brussels recounted a report of Mr Barroso threatening Mr Putin that he would recommend that companies stop purchasing Russian gas altogether. The diplomats considered it “a hollow threat”, but noted that “it marks a change in Barroso’s tone”.
“Without elaborating, [a senior EU official] noted that it ‘got personal’ during Barroso’s meetings with Putin during the gas crisis,” Brussels-based diplomats wrote in a cable a month later, adding that the Russian leader “viewed [Barroso] as unfairly assigning disproportionate blame on Russia for the crisis”.
Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s ambassador to the EU, insisted this week that Mr Putin and Mr Barroso had “a good relationship” although he acknowledged today’s summit was “certainly not an event of the mutual admiration society”.
A spokesman for Mr Barroso said the two sides had a “strong partnership”, as evidenced by the multiple summits.
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Cable extracts
Date: February 26 2009
Origin: Moscow
‘XXXX confirmed the widely known personality disconnet between [Vladimir] Putin and [José Manuel] Barroso. According to him, the prime minister sees the EU commissioner as the “Trojan horse” of the new EU states, whose message that “family is closer than friends” had worn thin in Moscow. XXXX noted that it “got personal” during Barroso’s meetings with Putin during the gas crisis.’
Date: January 27 2009
Origin: Brussels
‘EC President Barroso reportedly told Putin during the cut-off that “if supplies do not resume, [he] will recommend European energy companies stop purchasing Russian gas”. This is a bit of a hollow threat ... but it marks a change in Barroso’s tone.’
Date: October 1 2008
Origin: Brussels
‘Queried about using EU competition policy against Gazprom, XXXX confirmed the story that EU President Barroso had raised the subject with then President Putin and “had his head taken off”.’
Date: October 25 2006
Origin: Vilnius
‘XXXX was optimistic about receiving continued political support from the EU Commission, saying that Barroso was the strongest voice on energy policy at the Putin dinner ... [The Lithuanians] were surprised at the strength of Barroso’s comments.’
Bereaved sons and mothers urge Barroso to be brave with Putin
http://euobserver.com/9/31866
ANDREW RETTMAN
Today @ 09:22 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - With Russia's Vladimir Putin and the EU's Jose Manuel Barroso to spend one hour in a man-to-man talk in Brussels on Thursday (24 February), close relatives of Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky, Alexander Litvinenko and Mikhail Khodorkovsky told EUobserver what Mr Barroso should be asking.
Ilia Politkovsky, the son of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent Russian journalist shot in the head outside her home on Mr Putin's birthday in 2006, wants to know why the crime has not been solved.
"It's almost five years now and we don't have a any serious developments in the investigation. We have just some middle and low-level people in the court - why is that?" he told this website. "We have a lot of PR progress. They speak loudly. They say it's almost solved. But we don't even have the killer or the people who ordered it. For us [the family] this is an imitation of an investigation. I honestly don't understand it."
Natalia Magnitskaya, the mother of Sergei Magntisky, a Russian lawyer who was murdered in police custody in 2009 after uncovering a corruption racket, sent this website a written question.
"My son exposed a group of police officers and criminals who were stealing from the Russian state. He expected his government to support him in this. Instead the government allowed this officers to arrest him, kill him, and brand him a criminal. When is this lawlessness going to stop?" she said.
Marina Litvinenko, the widow of an ex-Russian secret service officer murdered in London in 2006 using a radioactive poison, said by phone from the UK that Mr Barroso should focus on trust.
"How is it possible to co-operate with a person who stands accused of the murder of my husband? Before all these crimes are solved, how can people talk to him? How can they believe anything he says? Nothing which he has promised in the past has happened."
She noted that the poison - polonium-210 - was either given to the assassin by high-ranking officials with access to such materials or stolen from a nuclear site, posing questions about Russia's nuclear security. "This should be the question: If this is not solved, how can we move on? How can we trust you at all? How can we co-operate on security?"
Marina Khodorkovsky, the mother of Vladimir Khodorkovsky, an oligarch-turned-reformer who was jailed at Christmas until 2017 in a trial widely believed to be politically motivated, also wanted Mr Barroso to focus on the rule of law.
"[Mr Barroso] should demand of Russia that it respects its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law," she said. "Putin is a man who said on TV before the verdict that my son was guilty and that 'a thief must sit in jail.' This is a sign of deep disrespect for basic democratic principles and is incompatible with Putin's law degree."
Opinion was divided as to whether the Barroso-Putin exchange will do any good.
Mr Politkovsky said: "I believe that if he gets these kinds of questions more and more, it might influence him to conduct the investigation more effectively."
Ms Litvinenko predicted that Mr Putin will simply lie: "I can imagine what he will say. He is not honest. He likes to present himself as a man of law but he doesn't like to talk about these things at all." Ms Khodorkovsky was even more negative. "At some point world leaders need to stop shaking Putin's hand," she said.
Asked what kind of a man Mr Barroso's guest is on a personal level, Mr Politkovsky said: "He is a very powerful politician but I don't think he cares about the Russian people."
Ms Litvinenko said he has a mild personality disorder: "He believes that he is a kind of god. That he is untouchable." She added that the culture of the FSB, the secret police which trained both her husband and Mr Putin, will make Mr Barroso's job harder: "If you give them what they want, they think you are being weak. They think they can do something even worse to you."
Asked what they understand by 'Putinism' - a term used to describe the state of Russia since Mr Putin came to power in 2004 - Mr Politkovsky and Ms Litvinenko both said: corruption and fear. Ms Magnitsky was too afraid to answer.
"In the changes of the 1990s [the fall of the Soviet Union] we had many difficulties. But people felt free and had hope that something new was coming. Now under Putin, people live in fear once again. They feel they have to say what people expect them to say and to do what people expect them to do," Ms Litvinenko explained.
"I would like to say to Mr Barroso: don't be afraid of Putin. He's just a person."
Russia to make concession on mobile roaming rates
Russian rates up to six times higher than in EU currently. -Reuters
http://business.asiaone.com/print/Business/News/Story/A1Story20110224-265158.html
Thu, Feb 24, 2011
Reuters
MOSCOW - Russia will offer to adopt EU guidelines for mobile phone roaming tariffs in a move that could slash prices currently up to six times higher than in the EU.
Russian communication minister Igor Shchegolev plans to announce the offer to the EU telecommunications commissioner during Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's visit to Belgium on Thursday, his press secretary told Reuters.
Deputy telecoms minister Naum Marder this month wrote to Russia's big three mobile phone firms - MTS MBT.N , Vimpelcom VIP.N and Megafon - to say the issue would be discussed on Feb. 24.
Since last July, EU data-roaming bills have been limited to 50 euros ($88.04) per month to avoid shocks, unless customers choose higher or lower limits.
The EU said in December it wanted to level national and roaming tariffs by 2015.
A Vimpelcom spokeswoman said mobile phone companies were hoping for government help to alter pricing policies.
"It is important to get help from regulators and the communications ministry, because the cost of other operators'services is the basis for our roaming tariffs," the spokeswoman said.
Russia's telecoms regulator filed a case against the big three firms a year ago after discovering tariffs involving roaming exceeded the EU price by three to six times.
Moscow mayor to arrive in S Korea on working visit
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=15983629&PageNum=0
24.02.2011, 08.39
SEOUL, February 24 (Itar-Tass) - Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Thursday is arriving in the South Korean capital on a working visit.
With the Seoul leadership he will exchange experience in the settlement of transport problems that are one of the most acute in megalopolises. The Russian and South Korean capitals are similar in many city transport infrastructure parameters.
In addition to a conversation with Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon, Sobyanin plans meetings with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Minister of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs Chung Jong-hwan.
The visit of the mayor of Moscow will last three days.
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