EU tensions ahead of Russian summit

Tensions within the European Union over how to deal with an increasingly assertive Russia have boiled over just days before a summit with President Vladimir Putin, as new EU member states step up their campaign for a tougher line.

At a bad tempered meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels last week, Lithuania blocked plans to begin wide-ranging negotiations with Moscow, provoking a furious response from ­Germany, which holds the EU's rotating presidency.

(2007-05-14) Daniel Dombey & Fidelius Schmid

How to fight back? - Responding to Russia's inept bullying

It has been a depressing couple of weeks for those who worry about Russian imperialism and sympathise with the underdog. But it has not been entirely hopeless.

Things started off badly: Estonia's decision to move a Soviet-era war memorial from a prominent spot in Tallinn to a military cemetery at the end of April aroused hostile passions among Russians and their sympathisers, and drew alarmingly muted and belated support from Estonia's allies. All four of the big European countries—Britain, France, Germany and Italy—said little or nothing. NATO and the European Union waited until Russia had, as usual, undermined its position by grossly over-reacting. America came up trumps in the end, inviting Estonia's president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, to the White House—but the invitation could have come a week earlier.

(2007-05-14)

Poland's revolution is consuming its democratic child

Recently, the European Parliament condemned the Polish government's attempt to strip Bronisław Geremek of his parliamentary mandate. A leader of Solidarity, a former political prisoner, and the foreign minister responsible for Poland's accession to NATO, Geremek refused to sign yet another declaration that he had not been a communist secret police agent.

The European Union parliamentarians called the Polish government's actions a witch-hunt, and Geremek declared Poland's "lustration" law a threat to civil liberties. In response, Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński accused Geremek of "damaging his fatherland" and "provoking an anti-Polish affair." The same phrases were used by the communists when Geremek criticized their misrule.

(2007-05-14) Adam Michnik

[page 1 of 20]