The European Union and Russia are close to taking a major step forward in their often tense relations with a deal to be signed at a summit in Moscow next month, EU diplomats said today.
Moscow will also signal a readiness for better ties with the three former Soviet Baltic states which joined the EU last year by signing an agreement delimiting its border with Latvia at the same May 10th summit, they said.
"We're going to have a very successful, substantial summit," said an aide to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who discussed future ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours in Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi last week.
A roadmap for the development of EU-Russia ties in four so-called "common spaces", which foundered last year over wide differences on the EU's role in other former Soviet republics, is now almost ready for signature, the diplomats said.
The key point of contention has been removed by Brussels agreeing to drop the term "common neighbourhood", which Russia saw as code for EU interference in its sphere of influence, in return for Moscow accepting in practice to work with the EU to address "frozen conflicts" in several neighbouring states.
The offending term has been replaced in a draft agreement yet to be finalised by the more cumbersome formula "regions adjacent to Russian and EU borders".
The clash over EU involvement in what Moscow views as its "near abroad" - dramatised by the triumph of pro-Western democracy movements in Ukraine and Georgia - had held up agreement on the "external security" common space.
The other three areas of cooperation are economics; freedom, security and justice; and education, culture and research.