Eu - Russia relations

The EU's travel sanctions on the Lukashenko regime have been described as "symbolic" at best, as the Belarusian president and his entourage pop up across Europe as members of their national Olympic Committee.
 
The countries concerned tend to be those where the regime has economic interests, and one wonders if these are the same countries that are blocking economic sanctions at the European Council.
 

A fifth Katyn case has been lodged at the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, with Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor accused of failing to clarify the circumstances of the fate of 20,000 Polish officers killed by Stalin’s security service (NKVD) in 1940.
 
The current, individual complaint has been made by the family of Jozef Dawda.
 
“My grandfather Jozef Dawda was an officer of the Polish police force stationed in the vicinity of Kolomea,” recounts Dariusz Dawda, who lives in Canada. .

"Regardless of how it all ends, (the revolts in Tunisia and Egypt) they have exposed the fallacies of Israel as never before. What is at stake is the fallacy that Israel is a stable, civilised western island in the stormy sea of barbarism and Arab Islamic fanaticism. The "danger" for Israel is that the mapping is the same, but the geography changes. The country would still be an island, but of barbarity and fanaticism in a sea of democratic and egalitarian States recently formed."

In March 2005, Vasily Yakemenko, a young Russian politician with a flair for organization, announced the formation of a new pro-Putin movement, Youth Democratic Anti-Fascist Movement "Nashi", or "Ours!"  In 2004, Russia was shaken by the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine. Aware of the democratizing influence of civil society, and the support given to the process by youth movements, the Kremlin seemed to want to ensure the loyalty of its own youth, and to deny the democratic opposition the ability to harness their energy and support.

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At this month's EU Russia summit a "deal was reached" on Russia's accession to the WTO, after agreement was reached on certain trade issues.
 

It has emerged that two Russian diplomats were expelled from Spain in November on suspicion of spying. Russia responded by expelling two Spanish diplomats last week, a Spanish foreign ministry spokesman said.
 
The spokesman would not comment on reports the Russians had engaged in economic espionage.
 
The spat comes before a year of high-profile cultural exchanges between the two countries.
Russia is due to celebrate a "Year of Spain" while Spain is to have a "Year of Russia".

Britain and Russia each expelled a diplomat from their embassies in mid-December, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in written statement on Tuesday.
 
"On 10 December we requested that the Russian Embassy in London withdraw a member of their staff from the UK," the statement to the House of Commons reads. "This was in response to clear evidence of activities by the Russian intelligence services against UK interests."
 

Earlier this month, in Moscow, as part of the 15th session of the Franco-Russian intergovernmental commission on bilateral cooperation an agreement was signed to set up a Joint Venture in the field of inertial navigation systems between Russian arms exporters "Rosoboronexport "and the French company " Sagem Defense Securite".
  

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