Mr President, Russia is already now by far the most significant country the Union shares a border with. That border, which is 1 200 kilometres long, will grow to twice the length when the Union expands into the Baltic countries. Russia is still a modest proposition in terms of its economy, GDP being slightly greater than that of the Netherlands, but its economic potential might be said to be huge. The Union has already strengthened its cooperation with regard to energy in Russia’s direction, as we heard the Commissioner say, which is vital if we are aiming to find a replacement for North Sea energy sources, which are running out, and avoid becoming solely dependent on the Middle East’s energy resources. Russia’s incomparable wealth with regard to forests, however, as well as Siberia’s reserves of precious and colour metals, for example, will also be one of the reasons for Russia’s rise over the coming years, the other being its high achievements in the sciences and high levels of skill and know-how. In the view of the Group of the European People’s Party , Russia is now and will be in the future our most important neighbouring region – whatever geographical definition is applied to cooperation with neighbouring regions. In our opinion the Union has to use all the economic and intellectual means it has to try and help the advance of a stable market economy, the development of democracy and see the rule of law become established and take root in Russia, because any other sort of Russia, if it remains a nuclear superpower, would also be the greatest potential security threat to the Union. Russia and the rest of Europe are bound to one another by destiny. ‘There is no great Europe without Russia and no great Russia without Europe’ was the motto employed by our party, led by the current President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, and Russia’s workgroup on progressive forces back at the start of the 1990s. Our attempts at cooperation with Russia, however, must not be allowed to ecli the fact that we now insist on better compliance with human rights and the freedom of speech than before in Russia. This does not apply just to Chechnya, but also and above all to the Chechnya region and the war and destruction in Chechnya that continues still. No conflict is any longer solved with weapons, but political decisions instead. The United States of America can also see that in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is why we demand that Russia shows even greater political initiative and openness and that it should make considerably better use of international organisations in more open solutions to the problems of Chechnya, as Commissioner Patten also said here in his speech with regard to questions of security in the region. Mr President-in-Office, we are not convinced that the recent elections and referenda were conducted honestly. Apparent democracy has been produced to cover up the truth, not to reveal it. In my opinion, the Council’s impression of a positive development, which Mr Frattini suggested there was, is not absolutely in keeping with the truth, and we noticed there were slight but obvious differences in the positions presented here by Commissioner Patten on the one hand and the President-in-Office on the other.

Political group: PPE-DE