EUROPE: EU ambassadors held talks last night aimed at persuading Poland to drop its objection to the start of talks on a new agreement between the EU and Russia.
Warsaw is threatening to block the start of negotiations at tomorrow's EU-Russia summit in Helsinki because of Moscow's ban on certain meat and food products.
The dispute threatens to overshadow the summit, which it was hoped would encourage better relations between the EU and Russia in fields such as energy and trade.
The European Commission and most member states have been pushing for the start of talks on a comprehensive new agreement with Moscow on energy, trade and human rights. But Poland's resistance threatens to delay the negotiations, which require all 25 member states to agree to for them to take place.
Yesterday's talks stretched late into the night and occurred as Moscow raised the political temperature ahead of the summit. In an article published in today's Irish Times, Russian president Vladimir Putin issues a veiled threat to Poland and other former communist states now in the EU. In the article Mr Putin warns against "the obsolete mould of friend or foe".
"Such stereotypes have little in common with reality, but their persistent influence on political thinking and practice runs the risk of creating fresh division lines in Europe," he adds.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has confirmed that Russia has issued a threat to ban all animal product imports from the EU from January 1st because of Romania and Bulgaria's poor animal health standards. A ban would be a devastating blow to Irish beef exporters, who exported 47,000 tonnes of beef to Russia in 2004 alone.
A commission spokesman said Russia had informed the EU executive on November 3rd of its intention to ban animal product imports from Europe. The commission strongly rejected the proposed ban, which could affect €1.7 billion worth of meat, dairy and fish exported every year to Russia from the EU.
"We would not regard such a measure as justified or necessary," said the spokesman. "The EU has taken all necessary measures to ensure the protection of animal health."
Romania and Bulgaria have suffered from outbreaks of swine fever and have not put in place enough facilities to deal with the rendering of meat. But the commission insists that they have put in place controls to ensure that no unsafe meat will enter either the EU's internal market or third country export markets.