Russian President Vladimir Putin showed some openness this week to European Union demands that Moscow ratify an international energy pact, an EU source said, moving the sides closer together before a G8 summit in July.
EU leaders met Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Wednesday and Thursday after months of choppy relations, sparked by the Russian gas dispute with Ukraine and public bickering over access to gas pipelines and energy infrastructure.
The summit, seen as a dry run before the energy-dominated meeting of the Group of Eight industrialised nations in St Petersburg, showed big differences remained between Russia and the EU, Moscow's biggest trading partner.
But an EU source familiar with the talks said he detected a more open approach from the Russian side to EU demands and saw the potential for progress ahead of the G8 meeting.
"Every time we talk I think we move forward in our mutual understanding," the source told Reuters. "Even on the Energy Charter, Putin was slightly more open."
The EU wants Russia to ratify the International Energy Charter, which would require to open up its gas pipelines to competition.
At a news conference on Thursday, Putin responded bluntly to those demands: "What do we get in return? What sort of access to what infrastructure, production and transport?"
The EU source said Europe had technology and investment to offer, in addition to support for Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation, a process which he said was now largely in the hands of the United States.
He said Russian concerns that gas monopoly Gazprom would be shut out of the 25-nation bloc's downstream distribution market were based on a misconception of how the EU's liberalised markets worked.
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