Poland relents

Last week Poland agreed to allow some talks on energy cooperation between the European Union and Russia. The agreement came after Warsaw vetoed the launch of talks for a new EU-Russia strategic partnership agreement at the Helsinki summit in November in protest against the year-old Russian ban on Polish meat imports.

That negotiating mandate still remains on ice, but the Poles announced they would allow a meeting of the EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council on energy, which they were also blocking. "It's a sign of a thaw in the Poles' position," said an EU diplomat. But another said: "It does not necessarily have any relation with anything bigger."

EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou will probably visit Moscow this month to try to convince the Russian authorities to lift the ban on Polish meat, as well as prevent a threatened wider ban on all EU meat. Russia has said it could ban all imports of meat from the EU, saying it is concerned that exports from Bulgaria and Romania do not meet its food-safety standards. (Reuters)