Another EU-Russia summit has come and gone. Late last week I outlined a few of the issues that were on the agenda, and noted that officials seemed “cautiously optimistic“.
If, by “cautiously optimistic” these officials meant that nothing exciting, either positive or negative, would happen - well, they were right. No real agreements were made, and both sides continued to constructively (ahem) disagree on pretty much every issue of dispute.
In lieu of anything interesting to report, quite a few of the Monday papers are majoring on Putin’s decision to compare the US decision to site missile bases and radars in Eastern Europe to the Cuban Missile crisis.
As the Guardian notes, Putin said:
“Analogous actions by the Soviet Union when it deployed rockets on Cuba provoked the Cuban missile crisis.”
But sadly, what they forget to note (but the International Herald Tribune fortunately remembered) is that he then quickly added:
“Thank God, we do not have any Cuban missile crisis now and this is above all because of the fundamental way relations between Russia and the United States and Europe have changed.”
The best bit of the summit by far was Putin’s announcement that Russia is to open a freedom and democracy think-tank in Brussels.
“With the aid of grants, the EU helps develop such institutes in Russia,” he told reporters after the summit in Mafra, Portugal. “I think the time has come for Russia, given the growth in our financial capabilities, to make its contribution in this sphere as well.”
Putin then went on to further rub his hosts noses in the muck by scornfully rejecting an offer from the EU to turn this into a jointly run think tank, and to provide half the funding.
Expect one of the new think tank’s first reports to be on persecution of Russian nationals in the Baltics…
