EU, Russia agree to cooperate in climate, energy fields
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EU-Russian cooperation in climate and energy fields will be further intensified, the leaders from the EU and Russia said after one day's EU-Russian summit on Wednesday.
Climate change and energy issues dominated the discussions at the summit, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country is the current rotating presidency of EU, said at a joint press conference together with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, President of the European Commission Jos Manuel Barroso and EU High Representative Javier Solana after the summit.
Reinfeldt welcomed Russia's constructive attitude to climate change, while emphasizing that cooperation between the EU and Russia on climate change needs to be further strengthened.
"We are in agreement on the two degree target and the need for emissions reductions from both developed and developing countries in order to reach it. Russia is one of the world's greatest emitting countries, so it has an important role to play if the world is to reach a climate agreement in Copenhagen," said the Swedish prime minister.
Russia has already met its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and it will further reduce its emissions, President Medvedev said at the press conference.
Jose Manuel Barroso also welcomed Russia's raised ambitions on climate change.
"We cannot negotiate with nature. We cannot negotiate with physics. We cannot negotiate with science. I have asked my staff to cooperate closely with their Russian colleagues in order to work out the details of Russia's increased commitment on these issues," he said.
The two sides also agreed that cooperation in energy needs to be intensified.
"On trade, we called for Russian accession to the World Trade Organization and the importance of avoiding trade protectionism," said the Swedish prime minister.
Barroso echoed Reinfeldt that the EU supports Russian accession of the WTO because Russia is an important player in the world and an important trade partner with EU, too.
Medvedev said that the two sides have conducted rational discussions over a number of issues.
"We discussed development of large economic projects, the energy cooperation issues, energy security in Europe, we found normal understanding because without agreements on these issues, we cannot imagine a normal life in Europe," he said.
"We must continue to exchange our opinion in order to lay solid base for future cooperation," the Russian president added.
Medvedev also stressed that the two sides should deal with visa with easy procedure so that Russian citizens can come to EU and EU citizens can visit Russia easily.
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