United Europe and Russia: Prospects and Problems

On November 17, 2009, the Carnegie Moscow Center hosted Austrian ambassador to Russia Martin Vukovich, who shared his vision of European-Russian relations as well as bilateral Austrian-Russian ties, in the second in its series of Carnegie Diplomatic Evenings marking the Center’s 15th anniversary.
Vukovich noted that economic interdependence between the EU and Russia has always provided immense potential for developing a strong relationship. These economic ties go back to the Soviet years and have the energy trade at their core. Expanding economic cooperation between the EU and Russia, and Russia’s accession to the WTO, would allow the EU-Russia relationship to become genuinely strategic. But truly normalizing EU-Russia relations, in Vukovich’s view, would also require resolving issues related to Russia’s past, a factor that has become increasingly important since the accession to the EU of new members from Central and Eastern Europe, whose historical experience of contact with Russia differs from that of Western and Northern Europe.
Dmitri Trenin, who chaired the roundtable, confirmed the need to develop strategic thinking in EU-Russia relations, without which further meaningful progress will not be possible.

See also:
Russia-EU-Europe: A 21st Century Perspective (seminar with Portuguese ambassador to Moscow Manuel Marcelo Curto)