Merkel and Sarkozy gaan samen met Rusland praten over veiligheid (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - German Chancellor Angela Merkel i and French President Nicolas Sarkozy i on Monday are set to hold a "brainstorming" session with Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev on issues ranging from missile defence to frozen conflicts, responding to Moscow's requests to be more involved in European security matters.
The two-day meeting in the French resort of Deauville is aimed among others at alleviating Russian concerns over a missile defence shield to be endorsed by Nato at a summit next month, to which Mr Medvedev i has also been invited.
According to the Elysee palace, this will be "a brainstorming exercise, certainly not a directorate of three," Le Figaro reports - a reassurance meant to alleviate potential criticism from neighbouring Poland or even the US over the exclusive nature of the meeting.
In 2003, the German, French and Russian leaders met in the same format to air criticism of the war on Iraq - an issue that divided leaders on the continent. The last meeting of the trio was in 2006 in Compiegne, with Ms Merkel meeting former French President Jacques Chirac and the current Russian premier, Vladimir Putin i.
Mr Sarkozy, under fire for his pension reforms and tough anti-immigration stance, is looking at the Deauville meeting to divert media attention from the prolongued strikes and public dissent. "Russia is looking more and more to the West and Deauville should be an occasion to accomadate this positive evolution," an Elysee source told Le Figaro.
Meanwhile, in Berlin, Chancellor Merkel said that the main aim of the meeting is to "talk about possibilities to let Russia and Nato co-operate better, because the time of the Cold War is over once and for all."
Moscow has until now fiercely opposed plans to deploy a US missile defence shield in Europe, arguing that it was in fact aimed against Russia. At a summit in Lisbon on 19-20 November, however, Nato allies are set to endorse linking up existing European air defence systems to the US shield, all under a Nato umbrella, and to extend the invitation to Russia as well.
Mr Medvedev has also been invited to Lisbon, but he has not responded yet. The French and German leaders will try to convince him that the new missile shield is not a revival of Cold-War-era rockets aimed against each other and part of a concrete "security architecture" from Vancouver to Vladivostok, as the Nato secretary general put it.
The idea to have a common security arrangement from Canada to Russia is one of Mr Medevedev's pet ideas and is likely to come up again in Deauville. Ms Merkel has so far signalled openness to have Russia-EU security meetings, but no European or American country has the stomach for a new security treaty with Russia.
"We would like Russia and the EU to be able to take joint decisions," Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow's ambassador to the European Union, told the International Herald Tribune. "I don't expect to be sitting at every session of the political and security committee, but there should be some mechanism that would enable us to take joint steps," he said.
When Ms Merkel and Mr Medvedev met in June near Berlin, both leaders proposed the establishment of a new entity, the EU-Russia Political and Security Committee. The new committee would consist of the foreign ministers from Russia and the EU, as well as foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton i.
The frozen conflict of Transnistria, a region sandwiched in the eastern part of Moldova and bordering Ukraine, may be one concrete initiative this committee would work on solving, the two leaders announced then.
EU's envoy to Moldova, Kalman Mizsei, recently stated that Russia must end its peace-keeping mission to Transnistria and pleaded for the EU and US to be fully engaged in negotiating a peace accord. Currently, the two only have observer status in the UN-mediated talks.