Date of release : 28-02-2005

Policy area : General Affairs and External Relations

Event : EU-Russia (Troika)

On 28 February 2005, Jean Asselborn, Minister for Foreign Affairs and current President of the Council of the European Union welcomed Serguei Lavrov, Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs for an EU-Russia Troika at Senningen Castle in Luxembourg. On the European side, Javier Solana High Representative for the CFSP, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, also took part in the meeting.

At the end of the meeting, Jean Asselborn made the following statement:

"It is a great pleasure for me to welcome today the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Serguei Lavrov. Only 3 weeks ago I had the occasion to have a thorough exchange of views in Moscow on a broad range of subjects.

Today it was in a Troika format that we were meeting, so it will not come as a surprise to you, that EU-Russia relations were at the forefront of our discussions.

At the EU-Russia Summit in St. Petersburg in May 2003, the EU and Russia reiterated their willingness to build a partnership based on common values and interests, and to intensify their strategic cooperation, in particular in four areas (called "four spaces"):  economy;  freedom, security and justice;  external security;  research and education.

We discussed today the roadmaps for these “four spaces", in particular the common space on external security. The four roadmaps are to be adopted as a package at the EU-Russia summit in Moscow on 10 May 2005.

Through the creation of these common spaces, the EU and Russia will be able to cooperate more closely on issues of common concern and interest, as well as on cross-border issues.

Since May last year, we have made considerable progress in our work on the four spaces. The fourth road map is practically finalised. Although some questions remain open in the other three spaces – and we will need to settle them before we can adopt the four road maps as a package at the upcoming summit – I am convinced that we will finalise all four of them by 10 May.

We also had an exchange of views on international and regional issues, such as the Western Balkans, the Middle East Peace Process, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Moldova and the OSCE.

Minister Lavrov informed us about the signature of the Russian-Iranian agreement that took place this week-end. We reiterated our position that the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards and the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) Protocol have to be respected. You also know that negotiations led by France, Germany and UK, with the support of the High Representative/Secretary General, are currently underway with the aim of getting objective guarantees for the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear programme, an undertaking Russia is fully supportive of.

I would also like to take this occasion to particularly welcome the first human rights consultations, which will take place here in Luxembourg tomorrow. The Luxembourg Presidency of the EU is very pleased to be able to launch this dialogue, following the agreement reached at the last EU-Russia summit on 25 November 2004."