EU FOREIGN ministers have approved a mandate to enable the union to begin long delayed talks aimed at concluding a comprehensive new partnership agreement with Russia.
Slovenian foreign minister Dimitrij Rupel said yesterday a negotiating mandate was agreed by all 27 EU states at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels but warned that the talks could be long and tough.
"Negotiations will start I hope now in June. How long will they take? I think around a year. How long will it take to ratify?
"I don't know, I hope another year, or I presume another year," he told reporters. "We are not in front of some quick fix."
A 10-year "partnership and co-operation agreement" between Brussels and Moscow expired last year and attempts to begin talks on a new agreement have so far foundered amid increasingly tense relations between the EU and Russia.
Yesterday's agreement follows 18 months of internal wrangling between EU states over concerns ranging from Russia's use of energy as a political tool to its decision to ban Polish meat products.
The most recent objection to starting the talks was made by Lithuania, which had raised concerns about Russia's role in "frozen conflicts" in former Soviet states such as Georgia and the disappearance of Lithuanian citizens in Russia.
But Vilnius finally removed its veto after an annex was attached to the negotiating mandate ensuring that the EU would raise these issues with Russia during the talks.
Any new partnership agreement would cover a whole range of EU-Russia political and economic relations, including energy, trade, education, research and possibly human rights. EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the future deal should also provide some "legally binding commitments" in all the main areas.
In particular, the EU wants Russia to allow its energy companies access to the Russian energy pipelines, a move that it believes would boost the Union's energy security.
It is also likely to seek a free trade deal with Russia when and if it joins the World Trade Organisation.
However, Moscow has consistently refused to ratify an existing energy charter, which would provide the type of market access on energy that the EU is currently seeking.
The continued tense relations between the EU and Russia was underlined yesterday when EU foreign ministers conceded that the planned deployment of an EU police and law mission to Kosovo on June 15th was likely to be delayed because of Russian objections.
Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini said he believed the EULEX mission could now be operative in the field after the summer - in September or October.
Russia says the proposed EU mission is illegal and has used its influence on the UN security council to prevent a formal handover from the existing UN mission in Kosovo to the new EU mission.
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea warned yesterday that any delay that caused instability in Kosovo could cause the Government to review the existing deployment of 280 personnel already on the ground as part of the KFOR mission.
"I didn't say that we would run away or that we would stay. I said that the Government would discuss the situation in light of new developments," said Mr O'Dea when asked if the threat of instability would cause Irish peacekeepers to withdraw.