Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-18-Speech-1-148"
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"en.20070618.16.1-148"2
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"Madam President, before I start, I consider it my duty to congratulate the rapporteur of the report on EU economic and trade relations with Russia. This really is an integrated, balanced and fundamentally realistic report, because it maps the present level of relations between the European Union and Russia.
No one can dispute the specific strategic weight of Euro-Russian relations and the need for them to be developed and deepened. Circumstances dictate that Russia should be promoted to the position of a strategic partner of Europe. It is not simply the statistics on economic and trade relations that force us to move in this direction. Nor is it simply the fact that Russia has large stocks of energy resources. It is, above all, the very history and geography of the European continent which, even under present circumstances, impose the need for new, integrated and balanced strategic relations between Europe and Russia.
These relations must be based on mutual respect and mutual benefit. Euro-Russian relations must look towards the future, towards the joint challenges we have to address and towards the joint potential we can exploit in order to achieve security, stability, development and prosperity for our people and cooperation in resolving serious global and regional problems.
Within this framework, we need to overcome the historic past of confrontation and mutual suspicion. We have a common need to work to establish a new climate of mutual trust. I point this out because clouds of mistrust, tension and crisis in our bilateral relations have already started to gather. No one has any interest in a new confrontation, in a new cold war, and this applies to both sides.
The European Union needs to formulate a common strategic perception of Russia in all sectors of cooperation, to speak with a united voice and to express its solidarity collectively towards each Member State. However, it is in the energy sector that there is an urgent need to formulate a common European policy. I believe that only under this precondition can the European Union strengthen its negotiating power and prevent the energy dependency of individual Member States and the exploitation of energy resources as a political weapon by the Russian side.
Important achievements have been made in relations between the European Union and Russia over recent years. Of course they were helped – and we should recognise this – by the far-reaching reforms and a new stable macroeconomic environment in Russia under the leadership of President Putin.
One strategic priority must be to immediately start negotiations on a new strategic partnership and cooperation agreement."@en1
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