Posted on 05/14/2007 11:27:40 AM PDT by lizol
Poland won't lift veto on EU-Russia talks: prime minister 14 May 2007, 14:21 CET
(WARSAW) - Poland will not lift its veto on talks between the European Union and Russia because Moscow has refused to end an embargo on imports of Polish meat and other food products, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said Monday,
"Our veto is still current. Russia has not lifted its embargo, so we will not lift our veto," Kaczynski said after holding talks with his Slovenian counterpart Janez Jensa.
The EU and Russia are due to meet in four days in the Russian resort city of Samara for talks to hammer out a new partnership and cooperation agreement covering a gamut of issues from energy to climate change, visa agreements to frozen conflicts.
Russia imposed an embargo on meat and other foodstuffs from EU member Poland in November 2005, alleging fraud in the implementation of safety standards by Polish authorities.
Poland, however, argues that Moscow is playing politics because of differences with the conservative government in Warsaw.
Angered by the embargo, Poland last November blocked the launch of talks between Russia and the EU.
Another new EU member, the former Soviet republic of Lithuania, took Poland's side against Russia on Monday, saying it could slap its own veto on the talks unless Russia resumes the flow of oil to the Mazeikiu Nafta oil refinery in the north of the Baltic state.
Oil stopped flowing through the pipeline in July last year, with Moscow blaming the cut-off on a rupture in the Soviet-era duct.
But the Lithuanians find this explanation suspect, especially as the flow stopped just weeks after Polish oil group PKN Orlen sealed a deal to buy the Mazeikiu complex from Russian oil giant Yukos, which had been hounded to bankruptcy by the Kremlin.
Moscow is said to have wanted Mazeikiu, which runs the only oil refinery in the Baltic states, to be acquired by a Russian group, and was said to be vexed by the sale to Orlen.
bump de bump.
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