Poland holds launch of EU-Russia partnership talks

Brussels, Nov 13: Poland will come under pressure today to lift its veto on the launch of talks between the European Union and Russia on a new partnership pact covering energy, trade and human rights.

Warsaw has been angered by Russia's ban on Polish food imports, and also wants commitments on energy supplies from Moscow before any talks can begin.

Negotiations on the pact are due to be launched at a Nov 24 EU summit with President Vladimir Putin. But envoys said Poland could prevent a meeting of EU foreign ministers from giving the European Commission today a mandate to negotiate.

''We have our interests and we have to protect them in the best way we can,'' a Polish diplomat said, adding however he would not rule out a compromise today.

Many other diplomats were pessimistic about a deal.

''I don't think there'll be an agreement today,'' said one EU envoy, who declined to be named. Diplomats said neighbouring Lithuania had also raised objections.

Poland, the biggest of 10, mostly ex-communist countries that joined the EU in 2004, has seen its relations with Russia deteriorate in recent years, with Moscow banning imports of the majority of Polish foods.

Poland also wants Russia to ratify an energy charter including commitments on energy supplies before the talks begin, a step Moscow is widely seen as unlikely to take as Putin has preferred to deal bilaterally with individual EU states on energy issues.

The new ''partnership and cooperation agreement'' with Russia is to replace an existing pact with Russia that runs up to the end of the year, and will define relations in the areas such as energy, trade, investment and human rights.

Foreign ministers are also due to discuss the stand-off between the EU and Turkey over Cyrpus after the European Commission last week gave Ankara a month to open its ports to Cypriot shipping or face repercussions in its troubled membership talks.

They will also approve arrangements making it easier for Balkans citizens to get EU visas and signal a policy shift on Uzbekistan, on which the EU imposed sanctions after accusing it of excessive force in quashing a revolt in the town of Andizhan in May 2005.

While the EU will extend an arms embargo for a year and the visa bans on 12 top Uzbek officials for 6 months, ministers will agree to resume technical meetings to welcome Tashkent's offer to discuss human rights and the Andizhan events.

EU defence ministers meeting in Brussels will study whether the bloc can do more to train Afghanistan's police force, cited by NATO as a weak link in security efforts, and launch a 50 million euro (64 million dollar) funding pool to finance cross-border EU defence research.

Such a pooling of funds in the sensitive area of defence is unprecedented in the EU and is going ahead despite Britain's decision not to participate initially because it believes the projects will duplicate work it is doing at national level.

(Additional reporting by Marcin Grajewski and Ingrid Melander).

Reuters