Posts Tagged ‘sikorski’
EU and Russia in visa-free talks, despite Magnitsky ‘regret’
EU officials will in Moscow on Thursday (21 March) try to pin down details on a visa-free travel deal, despite “regret” on Russia’s handling of a prominent human rights case.
The European Commission visit, including a tete-a-tete between commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, is part of a good will programme dating back to 1997.
A big point on the agenda is whether to let Russian officials enter the EU without a visa, while relaxing visa rules for Russian businessmen, journalists and students.
“There is now a majority of member states who are in favour of including service passport holders [officials] … If everything goes well, it [a deal] might take place this summer,” a commission official told EUobserver ahead of the trip.
The progress on visas comes despite EU criticism of Putin’s behaviour in the past 18 months – on rigged elections, on his crackdown on NGOs and dissidents and on lack of respect for the rule of law.
In the latest episode, Russian authorities this week closed an investigation into the death in 2009 of anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky, saying there was no crime.
They did it despite evidence he was put in prison, starved of medication and finally beaten to death because he exposed tax fraud by Russian officials.
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Dancing with the big boys
Warsaw – In its foreign policy Poland has chosen realism over romanticism
CRITICS and supporters of Polish foreign policy agree on one thing. Relations with Russia have been transformed in the past three years. But into what?
To the critics, a planned visit by Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s president, to Warsaw in December epitomises surrender, stemming from naivety or cynicism. They see Poland scampering after big countries such as Russia, France and Germany, rather like a teenager desperate to hang out with adults, heedless of the national interest. According to the leader of the opposition (and former prime minister), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland has become a Russian-German condominium. Some in his Law and Justice party blame Russian dirty deeds for the plane crash in Smolensk in April that killed his brother Lech, the Polish president, and scores of aides and officials. Two party members have just been in Washington, DC, trying to win American support for an investigation into what they believe is a huge cover-up.
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