Russia on Tuesday said it may extend a ban on grain exports that has been blamed for triggering global food price rises beyond its provisional expiry date of July 1.

• February 23, 2011

European plans to liberalise energy markets have undermined Russian investments, including the second phase of the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany, Russian Gas Society President Valery Yazev said on Monday.

• February 22, 2011

Alexei Miller will have to perform a careful balancing act when he goes into European energy policy negotiations later this week.

• February 22, 2011

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who will be in Brussels on 24 February, will seek long-term special arrangements for his country's gas supplies to the EU, various speakers said yesterday (21 February). Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's envoy to the EU, warned that the talks could be "unpleasant".

• February 22, 2011

The Russian foreign ministry on Monday summoned the US ambassador to Moscow over comments in which Washington reportedly backed the Japanese position in a simmering territorial row with Russia.

• February 22, 2011

A visit to China by Kazakhstan's long-standing leader is further reinforcing the growing Chinese role in the resource-rich Central Asian nation, with deals to be signed Tuesday on uranium supplies and financing for oil projects.

• February 22, 2011

ISSUE #05
02/21/2011

Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the Free Trade Agreement with European Union (EU) is 90 per cent ready.
Azarov said however that the remaining unsettled issues are the most sensitive to Ukraine. Among those Azarov named EU requirement to set quotas to Ukrainian agriculture products and position regarding Ukrainian motor carriers entering the EU market. Azarov said Ukraine will protect its interests on these positions. “Of course, Ukraine does not need a free trade deal at any cost. The deal shall meet the interests of Ukrainians”, – he said. He also added that the quotas that EU is offering now are not consistent with Ukraine's potential. “We make this deal not for one ortwo years but for tens of years, and that is why we need to think of perspectives. The approach not to allow Ukrainian agriculture products to European markets has no perspective”, - Azarov said adding that Ukrainian carriers also expect equal conditions of work at the European markets. READ MORE

• February 22, 2011

The Gorshenin Institute held a round-table discussion Russia-Ukraine-EU: Prospects for Mutual Relations on 17 February 2011 in the framework of the Project “Viktor Yanukovych’s First Year of Presidency. Conclusions”.

The member of the European Parliament, co-chairman of the joint parliamentary committee on EU - Ukraine cooperation, Pawel Kowal, in his written comments to Gorshenin Institute said that the recent events in Ukraine do not move the country closer to the EU. Kowal said that the EU and especially some members of the European Parliament are particularly concerned watching the developments in Ukraine. Kowal said that a lot of information appeared recently showing Ukraine’s drift towards the Russian model of “sovereign democracy”. He did not rule out that the serious work and achievements that Ukrainians have made over the past few years may be ruined. In particular, Kowal told about European politicians’ concerns and disappointment with the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office ban to the leader of the Batkivschyna party, Yuliya Tymoshenko, to visit Brussels. “Lack of credibility may pull down Ukraine to lower league of countries which are subject of constant worriment from the UE side. We already had a yellow light: Freedom House rated Ukraine as a partly democratic country” – Kowal said. READ MORE

• February 22, 2011