Frankrijk deelt Poolse klacht dat EU te passief is bij conflict met Rusland over voedselembargo (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - France is siding with Poland on complaints the European Commission has not done enough to help break Russia's food trade ban, as Finnish PM Matti Vanhannen attempts to salvage next week's EU-Russia summit.

"We have supported Poland on the issue of the embargo. We repeated on Wednesday (15 November) that it falls fully within the commission's competence - it's not a bilateral issue," a French diplomat told EUobserver.

"It's not for Russia to decide what the European Commission's competence is in our own interior architecture," he added, with Poland saying Brussels "overslept" on the food trade question, passing it from department to department over the past year.

Russia last November imposed a blockade on Polish exports of meat and vegetables, with Poland now saying it will block next week's EU-Russia negotiations on a new post-2007 treaty unless the EU gets tough on Russian trade and energy policy.

Trade commissioner Peter Mandelson in April privately promised the Polish ambassador in Brussels he would intervene, but washed his hands of the issue in June as a "bliateral matter" with the topic passing back to colleagues in the commission's health department.

"The Russians did not want the commission involved in the negotiations. We were proactive, we did our best, but the Russians just didn't want us," an official in Mr Mandelson's team said.

Another commission official added "There is sympathy for Poland. It's pretty clear that if a third country imposes a trade ban on an EU member state for political reasons - as in this case - then the commission has to act. But they didn't want to upset the Russians."

The energy gambit

Vetoing the launch of upcoming talks in Finland on the new EU-Russia pact, Poland this week also stipulated the EU must ask Russia to ratify the 1991 Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) on fair play in international energy markets.

The ratification demand comes at a time when Russia is suspected of using gas export prices as leverage to stop Ukraine and Georgia moving toward NATO membership and to push Belarus into an unwanted state union.

The other 24 member states say the EU should focus on getting the "principles" of the ECT into the new EU-Russia treaty as full Russian ratification is unrealistic, with Poland's ECT demand widely seen as a gambit to get EU backing on the meat issue.

"We saw this [meat export] issue coming, but we were all surprised by the strong linkage that Poland made with the new EU-Russia treaty. These issues cannot be linked in any formal way," an EU diplomat remarked.

Face-saving deal wanted

But with Russia publicly saying it will not bend to Polish "blackmail," the Polish prime minister calling for EU trade sanctions on Russia and the commission saying it is powerless to help, it's hard to see which solution can allow everyone to save face.

The spokeswoman for Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhannen said "it is possible" he will personally call his Polish opposite number, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, this week, adding "this is the biggest problem for the summit right now."

France has sketched a way out that would see the EU toughen rhetoric on Russia's energy behaviour but fall short of asking for ECT ratification while making binding promises to Poland on meat, but with no public linkage to the EU-Russia talks.

"Poland can change its position even on the morning of the summit [24 November], there is no strict deadline for this," one EU diplomat said. "But with each day that passes the chances for an agreement are getting smaller."