At a Russia-EU summit in Helsinki last month, Russia and the 25-nation bloc were expected to launch negotiations on a new partnership agreement, but the talks were vetoed by Poland over Moscow's refusal to sign the Energy Charter, liberalizing its oil and gas sector, as well as its ban on the EU newcomer's meat imports.
"We have turned this page in our relations with the EU," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said during a video conference between Russia and Berlin, organized by RIA Novosti.
He said the main principles of Russia-EU energy cooperation could be included in a strategic partnership agreement.
The new EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will aim to encourage closer cooperation in trade, justice, external security and research. The current accord expires in 2007.
The Energy Charter, drawn up as a mechanism of cooperation between Western and Eastern Europe on energy issues, was signed in The Hague in 1991, and came into force in 1998.
Russia has objected to the document over its unwillingness to give foreign investors free access to the country's oil and gas deposits and export pipelines, which the Energy Charter would force it to do.
Moscow says Europe's demands, via the charter, for access to Russian pipelines for Central Asian states and other countries, will make their natural gas 50% cheaper than Russia's when it arrives in Europe, and insists that the charter be revised.
The deputy foreign minister also told diplomats taking part in the video linkup that the unification of the Russian and EU energy systems will create a mutually beneficial and stable system of power supplies.
"By the end of the year, a feasibility study for the unification of the power grids of Russia and the EU should be completed. If we manage to synchronize them at the first stage, then at the second stage, after the systems are connected, we will create a mutually beneficial, stable energy supply system covering a vast area," he said.
Alexander Grushko said that following this, Russia and the EU will be able to act as both suppliers and consumers of electricity.
Russian electricity monopoly Unified Energy System said in November that a project to synchronize the energy systems of Russia with the European Union and the ex-Soviet republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States has been ongoing for a several years.
The project is aimed at making the power grids work on a single electricity frequency, enabling power flows between national networks.
The deputy foreign minister also said Russia and the EU are drafting an agreement on trade in nuclear materials.
"It is very important for us to agree on a non-discriminatory regime for trade in nuclear materials," the diplomat said.
He said the current cooperation deal with the EU envisioned that a nuclear materials trade agreement should have been reached by 1997. "But today, the European Union's domestic markets are closed to Russian products," he said.
The diplomat said Moscow would like this important sphere of Russia-EU energy cooperation to be regulated on an equal basis, and under conditions of mutual respect.
