Russian Relations

The European Commission said Monday it was prepared to resume negotiations with Russia on a new strategic partnership deal although no date had yet been set to do so.

"We have found a good way to proceed," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner after discussions among EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

The meeting on Monday was aimed at settling differences ahead of an EU-Russia meeting in Nice, in southern France, on Friday. Poland and Lithuania, formerly in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, had been firmly against any resumption of talks.

Poland dropped its objections, although Lithuania remains opposed to starting the talks.

The talks had been frozen on Sept. 1 in protest of Russia's military action in Georgia. But since the European Commission has a mandate to resume the negotiations, it did not require all 27 EU members states to move forward.

Britain and Sweden get on board

Britain and Sweden, which had been opposed to new negotiations, dropped their objections.

"While noting that a strategic partnership with Russia based on common values is not in place as of today, we can support resuming negotiations ... because we believe that the issues that will be covered are in the EU's interests as well as Russia's," the two countries' foreign ministers said in a statement.

"We are not returning to business as usual, nor are we turning the page on the conflict in Georgia. The EU will stick to the tough mandate that has been agreed for the negotiations," the statement said ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Breakdown of talks after Georgia war

On Sept. 1, following Russia's occupation of parts of Georgia, EU leaders at an emergency summit decided to postpone talks on the so-called "New EU-Russia Agreement" until Russian troops pulled back to the lines they occupied before the war broke out on Aug. 7.

The new agreement is meant to replace a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed in 1997, and is intended to give a legal basis to EU-Russia relations on everything from energy to culture.

Following the September summit, Russia pulled its troops out of most, but not all, parts of Georgia.

"Russia has not yet withdrawn to its pre-Aug. 7 positions as the EU has made clear that it must," the British-Swedish paper said.

Nonetheless, in recent weeks the French government, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, and the bloc's executive, the European Commission, called for a new start to the talks.

"These negotiations should continue, first because this would allow the EU to pursue its own interests with Russia, and secondly because this is the best way to engage with Russia on the basis of a unified position," the Commission said in a report on Wednesday.

Lithuania and Poland, who feel targeted by a Russian threat to site missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, had criticized that call, saying it rewarded Russia's occupation of Georgia.

But a number of EU states had warned that any further halt in talks would fragment the bloc, leaving member states free to cut their own deals with Moscow.

"The choice is very clear: Do we want to bilateralize our relations with Russia or do we want to have a clear EU-Russia policy?" Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said.