Russia's vast energy reserves and Moscow's rocky relations with Georgia loomed large over talks on Friday between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and top EU officials.
The Russian minister was meeting with Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to prepare the ground for an upcoming EU-Russia summit.
The November 24 summit in Helsinki is seen as key for future EU-Russia relations because both sides aim to discuss terms for a new Partnership and Co-operation Agreement ahead of the expiration of the current one next year.
Although the ministers would touch on a number of issues at Friday's meeting, European Commission spokeswoman for external relations Emma Udwin said energy was of central importance, because it will be central to the new partnership agreement.
"All our discussions with Russia in the current moment have some energy dimension in them because the new agreement that we look forward to negotiating with the Russians after the summit, after the new year, will include an energy chapter," she told reporters in Brussels.
She said that the broad new partnership agreement would range from trade and energy to human rights and governance issues as well. EU leaders had a chance for wide-ranging talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin last month at an informal dinner in Lahti, Finland, when they appeared split over their attitude to Moscow.
Although Putin gave EU leaders assurances that Russia would keep steadily and reliably pumping oil and gas westward to EU consumers, he also did not hesitate to take a swipe at Georgia.
Even though EU-Russia relations increasingly resolve around energy, the Europeans insist they will not shy away in talks with Moscow from more prickly issues such as Moscow's hard-nosed approach to Georgia.
"Georgia is the biggest issue, but there are issues concerning energy," Paivi Laine, a counsellor in the Finnish foreign ministry's Russian unit, told AFP from Helsinki. Russia has cut off transport ties, deported hundreds of Georgian citizens, and cracked down on Georgian businesses in the worst dispute between the two since a 2003 revolution brought a pro-Western leadership to power in Georgia.
Georgia has long been irked by what it sees as Russian support for its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while Moscow accuses Tbilisi of planning military action there.
In a new twist, Russia on Thursday said it planned to double its price for gas sold to Georgia -- raising the specter of last winter's "gas war" between Moscow and Ukraine - after bilateral crisis talks failed to resolve tensions and end the Russian blockade.
In reaction, the European Commission's Udwin said: "We support a move to market prices in general and understand Russia's wish to move to market prices, but, as we always say, that transition needs to be handled in consultation with the partner country concerned and at a pace the partner country can absorb." Moscow's increasingly tough approach to its energy reserves has rung alarm bells in the EU, which gets a quarter of its gas and oil from Russia.
The Europeans are concerned about Russia's recent decision to develop the huge Shtokman gas field without foreign partners, and threats to halt a project off Russia's Pacific coast run by Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell on environmental grounds.
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