EURussiaCentreEU-Russia Centre

Фрейзер Камерон дал интервью Виктору Макарову о Балтийском Форуме в статье “Мы можем только идти от меньшего к большему”

We can only go upwards

For the European Union there is no alternative but to work with Russia as it is, not trying to pretend it is something different.

An interview with Fraser Cameron, Director of the EU-Russia Center, Brussels, by Victor Makarov.

Where do you think the EU-Russia relations are today?

They are emerging form a very bad period. I think that now they can only go upwards. There have been a series of bilateral problems and there has been a backward trend in Russia towards authoritarian system. But now, with Poland and Lithuania having agreed on a common mandate, and with the new president of Russia, we have an opportunity to start moving forwards again. And the basic fundamental fact is that both sides are very dependent on each other and cannot escape from having a relationship. You can call it strategic or whatever you want, but a relationship has to exist between the EU and Russia, for all sorts of reasons.

But, today, is it not much more focused on specific interests? We negotiate the thing we need and we leave out the big questions, such as how do we conceptualize these relations?

We do that with nearly all our partners. We do not have a conceptual framework for the United States. We do not even have a legal framework for the US; we simply have sectoral agreements like air transport and open skies. So what we are trying to do with Russia, and, indeed, with China, is negotiate the most comprehensive agreement that EU has with any third country. Read more