Energy Roundtable Summary Document

The EU-Russia energy roundtable discussion held at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) on February 26, 2010, brought together a significant number of well known experts and policy makers engaged in the EU-Russia energy relationship in order to assess some of the challenges which presently exist in this sphere. Some of these challenges are summarised below. The objectives of the seminar organisers were to create an environment in which experts and policy makers could openly and candidly discuss the challenges standing before the EU-Russia energy relationship. The roundtable was also attended by a large number of participants from academia, government, energy companies and the diplomatic community.

• May 17, 2010

Moscow and Kiev will draw up by June a long-term contract on Russian deliveries of nuclear fuel to Ukraine, the head of the Russian presidential administration said Friday.

• May 15, 2010

Russian diplomacy has been on a roll in recent months, the revival of ties with Ukraine being the most dramatic manifestation. But a string of successes, major and minor, sung and unsung, has been notched up below that high point - in Poland, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Norway and Syria.

• May 15, 2010

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has been in the headlines, first for describing his predecessor Joseph Stalin as a "totalitarian dictator" and then for making the first state visit to Syria by a Kremlin chief since the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.

• May 14, 2010

China and other key world powers, except the US, have keen national interests at stake as far as Teheran is concerned

• May 14, 2010

More than 300 Romanian, U.S., Ukrainian and Macedonian troops will participate from May 17-June 24 in 'the Black Sea Rotational Force 2010' drill organized in eastern Romania, according to a news release on Thurday from the Romanian Navy General Staff.

• May 14, 2010

Russia is hoping its relations with Britain will get better when the new government takes office. Both experts and politicians do forecast an eventual warming in bilateral relations, but at the same time they warn that an early breakthrough is unlikely.

• May 14, 2010

A supposedly confidential Foreign Ministry document — an intentional leak that was published on Russian Newsweek’s web site this week — has created a stir among diplomats and journalists. Many saw it as a revelation or a signal of a significant and welcome policy shift toward the West. But in reality, this is quite an overstatement.

• May 14, 2010