EURussiaCentreEU-Russia Centre

14 мая 2009: Семинар Центра ЕС-Россия “Роль России в переговорах об изменении климата в Копенгагене”

30 июля 2009
Комментариев нет

14th May, 2009, 13.00 – 14.30

«Stanhope» Hotel, Rue du Commerce 9, 1000 Brussels

The EU-Russia Forum is kindly supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung

Report

On 14 May, the EU-Russia Forum and the Heinrich Boell Foundation held a roundtable discussion on Russia’s attitude to the Copenhagen review conference on Climate Change¹.

Mark Entin, Director of the European Studies Institute and Institute of European Law, MGIMO, Moscow, said that although the Russian MFA was keeping its cards close to its chests, there was no doubt that in official circles that climate change was growing in importance in Russia. President Medvedev was taking a personal interest in the subject and a range of NGOs, such as WWF, were actively seeking to raise public consciousness. Russia was flexible in its approach, aware that a consensus would have to be reached between the major players – the EU, US and China. Addressing the link between energy and climate change, Entin said that Russia was ahead of the EU in some areas eg. privatisation of its electricity network.
Rosario Bento Pais, DG Environment, European Commission, stated that the EU was following a twin-track approach (LSA and Kyoto). The return of the US to the table was very important. Other countries were waiting for movement on the part of Russia. There were still major differences in approach between the developed and developing world. China, for example, was unlikely to move before it saw the developed world doing so. Russia has conventionally been an unpredictable player in climate change matters, often coming late to the table. Energy efficiency was a key area and it was important that Russia made its targets on CO2 reductions public soon.
Sascha Müller-Kraenner, European Representative to The Nature Conservancy said that the impact of climate change on Russia would be tremendous, particularly as 60% of the Arctic Circle is in Russia. Russia was one of the world’s major emitters and its emissions were rising. An agreement on climate change would limit consumption of fossil fuels on a global scale and this would pose problems for countries like Russia that made a business from them. He doubted whether Russia really recognised the extent of the problems it faced. The EU needed to ask what concessions needed to be made to Russia in order for a global agreement to be possible. This implied taking into account the global picture on energy and climate change.
Fraser Cameron, Director of the EU-Russia Centre agreed that climate change negotiations should not be viewed as an independent set of negotiations, but rather as part of a bigger picture, which included economics and energy security. The EU had the ability to help Russia in tackling the problem of energy wastage.
Rikke Reumert Schaltz, Permanent Representation of Denmark to the EU stressed that Denmark, as host country to the UN Climate Change Conference, had not forgotten about Russia and was fully aware of its importance in the negotiations as the world’s third largest emitter. It was important to get Russian industry on board and convince Russia that it could be a world leader in this field.
Robert Dollinger, United States Mission to the EU, said US policy was still evolving. It was uncertain whether any US legislation on climate change would be passed prior to the Copenhagen conference. However, there was a momentum creating a feeling of “cautious optimism.” The US was also engaging with Russia on climate change. Russia stood to gain perhaps more than any other country from the agreement in Copenhagen.
Eberhard Rhein, Senior Advisor to the European Policy Centre, pinpointed the price structure for energy in Russia as the main problem. No progress could be made unless this was changed. He hoped the current economic crisis would lead to a re-structuring of the Russian economy. A 20% reduction in emissions by 2020 could easily be achieved by Russia, but the “driving force” in Russia needed to be identified.
Bjorn Fagerberg, General Secretariat of the Council, agreed that it would be important to find the Russian “driving force” in climate change. Public perception of climate change in Russia needed to be tackled.
Mark Entin (quoting President Medvedev) said that Russia aimed to reduce its emissions by 50% by 2050. The base level should be 1990 and not 2003. It was a mistake to simply talk about “energy” as a general concept; all types of energy would need to be taken into consideration. The aim of allowing energy prices to rise to market levels had been delayed due to the current economic crisis. Previously public opinion had viewed climate change as “not dangerous to today or tomorrow” but this attitude was beginning to change. Roderick Kefferpütz of the Heinrich Böll Foundation referred to a BBC poll that claimed 64% of Russian citizens know nothing about climate change. Jason Anderson, WWF, doubted that Russia was really moving on climate change. It would need concerted pressure to bring about change.
Chongjun Bai, from the Mission of China to the EU said that as the world’s biggest developing country, China recognised the dangers of climate change and was focussing on energy efficiency and promoting sustainable energy. China was waiting to see how the developed countries would react.
Henrik H Eriksen from the Mission of Norway to the EU stated that so far, Russia had not participated very constructively in climate change negotiations. But this could change. Although it was always very challenging to deal with Russia, it was possible to secure an agreement. An incentive to get Russia on board with climate change needed to be found.
Michael Wriglesworth, Senior Advisor to the Centre for European Policy Studies, said that an element of Russian “self-interest” would need to be found in order to secure successful Russian participation. Countries were never altruistic “even when trying to save the world.” Fraser Cameron agreed that Russia would use the climate change negotiations as a bargaining chip.
Roderick Kefferpütz, stressed that if Russian domestic CO2 reduction targets were insufficient, negotiators should push Russia to offset some of its emissions in the Central Asian Republics. He thanked all of the participants for a lively and interesting discussion adding that it was still unclear what Russia really wants in the climate change negotiations and that further discussion and engagement with Russia would be needed to ensure progress is made.

____________________

1 – COP15 will be the fifteenth Conference of the Parties under the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention. The conference will take place from 7 December to 18 December 2009.

Russian domestic policy

30 июля 2009 — Россия
Комментариев нет

In June, President Medvedev took some measures to ease the situation of NGOs in Russia. On 17 June the president introduced into the Duma a bill to amend NGO legislation. A first reading of this bill was approved by 391 (out of 450) members. Those in favour included members of the United Russia, Just Russian and Liberal Democrat parties with the communists against.
Garri Minch, the president’s representative in the Duma, said the purpose of the bill was to liberalise the legal position of NGOs. In future, NGOs seeking (re) -registration should receive it within three months if they had produced all the required documents. If registration were refused the notification period would be reduced from three months to 14 working days and notice of this decision would be given within three days. NGOs will only need to renew their registration every three years instead of the current annual requirement.
This bill was drafted by a presidential working group under the chairmanship of Vladislav Surkov, first deputy leader of the presidential administration and included representatives from the justice ministry, the Duma, the Federal Council and civil society. It was the result of a long process in which Medvedev had recognised the problems facing NGOs in Russia. This is in contrast to Prime Minister Putin, who, in 2005, sought to make life for NGOs more difficult and then because of pressure from outside the country had to ease some of his proposed measures.
In a speech to the committee formed to promote civil society and human rights on 15 April, Medvedev declared that improvements to NGO legislation were possible and also necessary. The chair of this committee is Ella Pamfilova, a well-known human rights activist and former minister for social affairs (1991-1994) who stood against Putin in the 2000 presidential election. The other 36 members represent a wide spectrum of political organisations, academia and respected NGOs such as the Helsinki Group, Transparency International and Greenpeace. The director of the think tank formed by Medvedev, (Institute for Modern Development, Igor Jurgens (see May report) is also a participant.
Medvedev believes that the law to improve the situation of NGOs will need to deal with the following areas: their fiscal position, their relationship with government agencies, how they inform the wider public, their state subsidies, how best to use their expertise and public hearings on the most pressing questions facing society today.
Medvedev has also called for a heightened role for the 126 strong Public Chamber (comprised partly of representatives of NGOs) in consultations dealing with the legislative process. The Duma now has to send draft legislation to the Public Chamber, whose members are allowed to make short statements in parliament on matters that affect citizens’ rights. It is possible that Medvedev hopes, in this fashion, to gain allies for his domestic reforms. In addition he is hoping that should the economic situation worsen, NGOs will be able to act as a buffer and channel some of the protests away from the government.

Medvedev & The Press
On 13 April 2008, Medvedev gave his first interview to a Russian newspaper. He chose Novaya Gazeta a newspaper that is critical of the Kremlin and known for its hard-hitting investigative journalism. Four journalists working for this newspaper have been murdered in the last ten years, including Anna Politkovskaya. The latest journalist from this newspaper to be murdered was Anastasia Baburova who was shot in the street on 19 January 2009, within view of the Kremlin, as she stood with Stanislav Markelov, Politkovskaya’s lawyer.
At the time there was no top level political reaction. It was ten days later that Medvedev had a meeting in the Kremlin with the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Dimitri Muratov and Mikhail Gorbachev, one of the paper’s owners. In a one hour discussion, where Medvedev stated his regret at the murders and accepted that his silence had been an error. More important than the content of the interview given to Novaya Gazeta was the fact that it took place at all. Medvedev’s spokesperson, Natalia Timakova, said that it was an expression of the president’s moral support for the newspaper.
In the interview, the president came out strongly against any social contract that exchanged civil rights for economic wellbeing. On the subject of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he said he was in favour of an independent judiciary and, as president could therefore not get involved in an ongoing legal case.

A new programme to deal with economic crisis
On 19 June 2008 Prime Minister Putin signed the government’s new anti crisis programme. The first programme appeared on 7 November to demonstrate that the government was taking action in the face of the economic downturn. Medvedev’s contribution had been the creation of a council to develop financial markets in the Federation on 17 October 2008 (the prime minister was not a member) alongside the measures laid down in his state of the nation address on 5 November 2008.
The Putin anti crisis plan foresees the following priorities: the state would fulfil all of its social obligations to the people; develop industrial and technological potential; increase domestic demand as a platform for export growth; encourage economic innovation and structural change; create better conditions for economic growth by improving elements of the market economy and removing barriers to business; create a more stable financial system to promote more reliable economic growth.
Overall the programme’s 29 pages are geared to strengthening the financial sector, assisting the ‘real economy’ and implementing social measures.

Protests against the economic situation
According to the Ministry of the Interior, there were 2500 protests provoked by the economic situation during the first quarter of 2009. There were some 200 protests in the heavy industry Ural region alone and 140 of these involved violation of the law. These figures show that the economic crisis has affected the population and the protesters have made clear that they are no longer prepared to stand quietly by and put up with things, even if it means having to break the law now and again.
Most of the protests took place in the 700 one-industry towns where one of the big companies in each has collapsed. The government now wants to set up a working group to look at this problem. Moscow is increasingly nationalising businesses that have got into trouble as a result of the crisis. (The Moscow Times 04.06.2009).
Nationalisation is often taking place at the request of workers who have often not been paid for months and who are unable to feed their families. There are numerous examples from around the Federation where whole towns and surrounding areas are suffering economic and social distress. Putin has indicated that governors who have failed to control unemployment and allowed workers to go unpaid will be dismissed.
The Moscow-based Centre for Political Economy has suggested that in future potential protests could come from four different areas:


• Those in the military who are unhappy with the reform of the armed forces.



• University students and recent graduates, many of whom will not find employment this year.



• Migrant workers millions of whom live in the Moscow and St Petersburg areas. At present they have not organised any protests as they are too culturally diverse and poorly integrated into Russian society.



• Low and mid level members of the security services. Protection money that they had previously been able to extract from small and medium businesses has disappeared as these firms have fallen victim to the economic crisis. The higher ranks of the security services do not have this problem as they ‘protect’ the larger businesses that receive help from the state. The discontent at lower levels will not be demonstrated publicly but they will be able to sabotage some of the government’s anti crisis measures.

Until now the government has been able to end protests by providing funds to pay wages that have not been paid by private companies and then it has nationalized the companies concerned. If this situation gets worse in the autumn, as some in Moscow believe, then there will be more than just isolated protest demonstrations. In this case the government may well see itself forced to adopt more repressive measures, especially when the reserve fund has been exhausted. Analysts at the economic magazine ‘Kommersant’ (01.07.2009) estimate that these funds will be exhausted by the middle of May 2010.
It could be a difficult autumn for the government.

Пребывание наблюдателей ЕС в Грузии продлили на год

27 июля 2009 — Грузия
Комментариев нет

Совет Евросоюза 27 июля продлил срок пребывания миссии наблюдателей на территории Грузии до 14 сентября 2010 года, сообщает “Интерфакс”. Действующий мандат истекает в сентябре 2009 года.

Министры иностранных дел стран ЕС также потребовали для наблюдателей неограниченного доступа в Абхазию и Южную Осетию. По словам представителей Совета ЕС, Россия чинит препятствия деятельности миссии на территориях, которые Грузия считает своими. Евросоюз требует, чтобы российские войска отошли на позиции, которые они занимали до конфликта в августе 2008 года.

Грузинская сторона неоднократно заявляла о том, что США ведет с ЕС переговоры о подключении к миссии американских наблюдателей. Возможное участие американцев в деятельности миссии стало одной из тем недавней встречи вице-президента США Джозефа Байдена с Михаилом Саакашвили. Тбилиси надеется на положительное решение по этому вопросу.

В настоящее время на территории Грузии находятся около 300 европейских наблюдателей. Большинство из них – полицейские и жандармы из стран Евросоюза.

Источник: Lenta.ru