Estonian politicians don’t hope much from Ilves’s and Medvedev’s meeting
27.06.2008, 10:12According to the Prime Minister Andrus
Ansip, Estonians shouldn’t be expecting too much from president Toomas Hendrik
Ilves’s meeting with his Russian colleague Dmitri Medvedev.
Today, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and his wife Evelin Ilves will be
heading to a formal visit to Russia, where they will participate in the Fifth
World Congress of Finno-Ugric nations that will take place in Hantõ-Mansiisk in
Western Siberia. During the course of the event, Ilves will tomorrow meet
Medvedev to discuss important matters from the points of view of both
Estonia-Russia and the European Union and Russia relations, writes
postimees.ee.
Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said that instead of Russia more attention should
be paid to the Nordic states. “Our economic interests are still mainly connected
with Finland and Sweden and the development of our relations with Finland and
Sweden influences our economy far more than our relations with Russia,” he
said.
Ansip added that Estonia still wishes to have good-neighbourly or pragmatic
relations with all of its neighbours, which includes Russia.
Marko Mihkelson, the chairman of Riigikogu’s European Union matters
commission, writes on his blog site that the success of the meeting depends on
how willing Russia is to deal with all problems without connecting them to other
matters, but he doesn’t seem to be very optimistic.
“Medvedev’s own actions and speeches have shown that in sensitive matters in
Estonian-Russian relations, like Estonia’s citizenship policy or questions
connected to the Second World War, he isn’t ready to behave constructively at
all,” writes Mihkelson.
According to Mihkelson, it is clear that there is not much hope to solve the
number of problems that have piled up during decades during one such meeting,
the relations could improve only as the result of long-term efforts.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Urmas Paet, said that Estonia is ready to tackle
all subjects during the meeting. “It’s seen that in the last few years not all
options have, unfortunately, been used and that mainly due to lack of will. I do
not consider it normal that high level contacts between neighbouring countries
are so rare,” Paet said in the governments press conference yesterday.
The director of International Centre for Defence Studies, Kadri Liik, isn’t
expecting much from the meeting. According to her, the fact that the meeting
will take place is valuable news as such meetings occur rarely, but what sort of
a contact the presidents will have is more interesting than the outcome of the
meeting.
According to Liig, it’s too much to hope that much information about the
meeting will reach the public.
The ex-president of Estonia, Arnold Rüütel, said it’s not suitable for him to
attempt to predict the possible outcomes of the meeting, but that he hopes for
positive developments.
Before the world congress of Finno-Ugric nations, yet another summit
between the European Union and Russia will take place in Hantõ-Mansiisk, during
which both energy problems as well as Russia’s problems with Georgia will be
discussed.