The information reached Novosti as it interviewed Jan Peter Balkenende, European Council President and Prime Minister of the Netherlands, current EU chair country.
There are many matters on which understandings have been made within shared domestic and international security environments. Apart from those issues, the conferees will see just what the EU and Russia can do together in the United Nations and the Russia-NATO Council, said Mr. Balkenende.
The anti-terror alliance is reaching far beyond occasional practical steps-for instance, freezing terrorist financial assets.
Russia is not merely the European Union's closest neighbour in continental Europe-it is among key figures in today's global arena. That is why the summiteers will also exchange opinions on a wide range of international issues.
Our interviewee does not think the summit will bring agreements on all the four united environments. To make whatever progress in that field is what matters most, considering the importance of those environments-economic; freedom, security and justice; foreign security; and culture, research and education. All together, they make a basis for strategic partnership.
Either Party is aware of an essential necessity for closer cooperation. So, last year, Russia and the EU determined to blueprint efforts in four fields that became known as united environments, and so step up their partnership. As the environments are emerging, the Parties are together tackling shared problems and frontier issues-suffice it to mention anti-terror combat, and efforts against illegal migrations and organised crime, said the Dutch Prime Minister.
The European Union regards the four environments as one whole, and so is eager to make an agreement on them. That will hardly be the case tomorrow, he remarked.
Meanwhile, Russia and the EU have every chance together to start implementing particular aspects of the environments, for instance, in culture and education, or to comply with the Kyoto protocol.
As Mr. Balkenende sees it, accord on all the four environments will spectacularly upgrade Russian-EU partnerly contacts to do tremendous benefits to both-teamwork will be much easier for justice, police, anti-terror forces and researchers. Private trips will become much smoother, too, reassured the Premier.
The upcoming summit in The Hague can hardly be expected to adopt anything like Road Maps on all the four environments, Vladimir Chizhov, Russia's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said on an earlier occasion. Work on the environments is duly proceeding, but their "Road Maps" will hardly find final approval during the summit. Most probably, the routine will go on after it, he thinks.
