Surprise ending

EU officials have said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has vowed to cut his country's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 to 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

The announcement came after a summit between European Union officials and the Russian president designed to lay the groundwork for a new economic and political partnership between Moscow and Brussels.

Medvedev did not comment publicly on the new emissions target but European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said "with the Copenhagen conference starting in just over two weeks we have made very important progress today.

"I very much welcome the signal from President Medvedev today of their proposed emissions reduction target of 20 to 25 percent," he added.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said enlisting Russia's support for ambitious emissions targets at upcoming UN-backed climate talks in Copenhagen was a must.

"Russia is very important on climate issues. It is important to get a deal in Copenhagen, and it is important what Russia does itself: it is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world," Reinfeldt said after the summit in Stockholm.

The emissions reduction pledge, if Russia sticks to it, would strengthen the EU's ambitious position in Copenhagen. The pledge could also prove important in putting pressure on countries like the US, China and India.

Russian economic reform

EU leaders also praised Medvedev's recent state of the nation address, in which he called Russia's economic structure "primitive" because it was too reliant on exporting natural resources. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said change was important, especially for environmental reasons.

"Russia still needs to do what we did with our economies in the 1970s and 1980s," she said. "Think of Germany's coal and steel industries, which then needed modernization. Now we have climate change, and the green industry, as we call it, will be very important indeed in the future."

EU and Russian officials also sought to play down their differences over Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 27-member EU is pushing for Russian entry into the trade body in the hope it will make investment in the country easier for European companies.

Russia rocked the boat in June however when it announced plans to begin a customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan from next year. There were fears such a union could lead to new tariffs for European businesses.

Medvedev said Wednesday however that those concerns were "groundless" because tariffs in the custom union would be in line with WTO commitments.

Complaints from the European business community have also focused on the perceived high levels of corruption in Russia. The EU has been lobbying the Russian government to fight it, and Medvedev acknowledged the problem existed.

"We know pretty well what's wrong in our economy, and corruption is one of the problems. There can be only one answer to this: Russia will continue to fight against corruption and punish those responsible," he said.

Energy security

Little progress was made in other bilateral areas at Wednesday's meeting, with European energy security also on the agenda. The EU is wary that the coming winter could bring another disruption in Russian gas flows.

Early this year millions of European consumers were without heating because a price dispute between Russia and transit country Ukraine led to a stoppage of gas deliveries.

"We not only fully feel EU concerns but share them in full as a reliable supplier," said Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's ambassador to the EU, on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, the EU and Russia agreed to establish a gas cut-off early warning system, but this still leaves Ukraine out of the equation.

dfm/Reuters/AFP/dpa
Editor: Trinity Hartman