Far-Flung Euro-Junket to Khabarovsk

Yesterday, Eurocrats arrived in Khabarovsk — nine time zones away from Brussels — for the biannual EU-Russia Summit. The FT hilariously noted that "jet lag topped the agenda," adding that even "President Dmitry Medvedev has recently taken to video conferencing with the far eastern region's bureaucrats as a saner alternative to flying there. 'You lose two whole days when you go out to the far east'..."

"Vaclav Klaus, Czech president - the Czechs hold the revolving EU presidency - had a look at the list of prospective sites before Mr Klaus picked Khabarovsk, because 'he hadn't been there before and wanted to see it', according to a diplomat, who asked not to be named."

Not surprisingly, nothing got accomplished — the usual with most EU-Russia powwows. Both sides failed to agree on concrete measures to prevent another cutoff of gas supplies to Europe. Medvedev also reaffirmed opposition to signing the Energy Charter and once again suggested a Moscow-proposed energy security pact. Meanwhile, Barroso said such proposals could only supplement, but not replace, the Energy Charter. While the EU pressed Russia to ensure reliable gas supplies, Medvedev singularly blamed Ukraine for the two-week gas cutoff in January and warned further disruptions due to Ukraine's insolvency. Kyiv plans to inject 12-19 bcm of Russian gas supplies worth $3-4.8 billion into its underground storage. Medvedev proposed that the EU help Kyiv obtain a syndicated loan to finance the supplies.

I propose that EU-Russia Summits should be like the Olympics or the World Cup — held every four years so that both sides can actually come up with some concrete proposals and try to implement them when the time comes. Or maybe the next EU-Russia Summit can be held in the Falkland Islands (a UK territory), which is only 7 hours from Moscow.