Russia is a source of both security and insecurity in the minds of Europeans; political leaders and citizens alike. Prominent Russian political figure Andrey Klimov, the Deputy Head of the Committee on International Affairs of the Russian Duma, shared his thoughts and ideas with New Europe editor Alexandros Koronakis last week, passing powerful messages, speaking not as a neighbor of the EU, but as a European.

After a difficult time with the gas crisis, where are EU-Russia relations now?

First of all I can say, that with the help of three crises, we have better relations with the EU now. One of the crises was that of the Caucasus, the other crisis is the financial one and the last one is the gas crisis. Going through these crises, we have better understanding and we have more realistic affairs between two parts of Europe - the Russian part, which is half of the European continent, and the rest of Europe. When somebody says the EU is Europe, partly it is, partly it is not; not all of Europe. If we are speaking about Europe, you have to have in mind that this continent stretches from the Ural Mountains up to the Atlantic Ocean. Or maybe form Atlantic Ocean to Vladivostok, who knows. Geographically Russia is a part of Europe and now after our troubles, we have better understanding. So these problems, these crises, these obstacles, they gave us new possibilities, new understandings, and maybe a new future.

Is the relationship between the EU and Russia a strategic partnership? Or a trade-based relation?

The Russian position is very simple. We have to speak about the strategic partnership, because we already have a partnership agreement. It is still in force. This PCA (partnership cooperation agreement ) still exists. Of course it’s a bit out of its 10 year term, but we can prolong it automatically and we already have the normal partnership and cooperation. What we need to have in the 21st century of course is a strategic partnership. This is very easy to do, because now Russia is not a communist country, it is not a soviet empire; it is even not the tsarist empire. It is a new federation based on a market economy, based on a multi-party system, based on a new generation of politicians, and we are a part of the European civilisation anyhow.
Our ground values are Christian values, and we recognize these Christian values. Not like some European politicians. I can see that the strategic partnership is really our common goal. But unfortunately, in Brussels now many politicians prefer not to name this base as a ‘strategic partnership’. They prefer even not to mention this word – strategy – they like to speak about long-term partnership, about partnership and cooperation in many spheres, about cooperation based on four spaces, but they prefer not to mention the word strategy. Maybe this is not only a psychological problem, but this is a political problem too. If we limit ourselves to trade between EU and Russia, if we like to keep peace between Russia and the EU, then this is just as we called it in soviet times – mutual coexistence.
What is the difference between times of the Cold War and now? During the times of Cold War we also had a lot of business, we also had all these pipelines, and we also had a mutual coexistence theory between us. Now we must do something more. The contribution of our generation of politicians must be such: Europe without visas for travelling, free flow of capital, movement for investments and free trade; and maybe, not now, not yet, the free flow of labor. When I say free from visas, I mean not free for labor – it’s a different thing. So, go step by step going in such a way, we can built a real Europe as our own common house without dividing borders, without these walls – Berlin or Schengen or others, and we can solve a lot of problems together, starting with, energy dialogue and finishing maybe with the combat with terrorism, inter-cultural dialogue, etc.

With many eyeing Nuclear energy as a solution – would you say that Nuclear energy is the way forward for EU-Russian cooperation?

We have our nuclear power stations in Europe, not only in Russia. All of them workable, but some of them are closed now under the pressure of our competitiveness with the European Union, not because they are as dangerous they move bones, graves. So why shall we speak about human rights only outside the EU. We have to speak about human rights everywhere, including the European Union. So that is why we are very concerned about human rights in Europe - rights of national minorities, rights to keep your own language, rights to keep your culture. We can name some other problems – with migration, with drugs – why do drugs go from Amsterdam to Russia through all the European states. We have to stop it somehow. Where is the police, where are the secret services?
Why don’t they want to stop these criminals. We have a lot of questions about the human rights, about double standards, about the freedom of press, about the freedom of movement, visas. The European Union has built a new Schengen wall. Under 10 years ago it was possible for me to travel to Cyprus without any visas. But after entering the EU it is not possible now. The same people, the same country. Why not to give an exception for Cyprus to have Russians without visas? They closed the border. After the crisis of the Soviet Union, it was possible for Russians to travel freely to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Baltic countries, even to DDR (East Germany). Now it is not possible to travel to countries of the EU without visas, the European Union presses us out of the European continent. And that is why we are very angry about that, where are the freedoms? Freedoms of travelling for Europeans? We are concerned about the human rights in Europe.

The world is facing a very tough economic crisis. What has been the impact for Russia so far?

We are victims of this crisis as many other countries in the world. But unfortunately, if you compare Russia with the US or France, or Germany, you can see that, the main thing which is not the same in our countries is that all these countries already have a modern structure of economy. We don’t and this is our problem. Unfortunately most of our inputs are based in our traditional goods like gas, oil, timber, iron, nuclear materials, etc. and we don’t have so much knowledge and know-how to implement in our industry and agriculture. So unfortunately we became victims of this crisis on the way to prosperity, to new technical levels. Being ‘on the way’ we face many more problems than countries who are already there. Fortunately we have arranged some special funds and reserves during the previous years and we have enough money not to blow up our banking system, to protect all our obligations to common people, pension funds and so on and that is why we are in another positions than we were let’s say during the 90’s. I hope we can overcome these troubles in one or two years.

You are the chairman of the board of the European club. Can you tell us a little bit about the function of the European Club – and its new venture to launch an internet portal entitled: Partnership and Success – the EU and Russia?

I also co-chair a Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and I am a deputy to chair of Foreign Affairs Committee. Since 1999, we started the European Club. It is a kind of NGO – not a juridical board or party or part of the European parliament, but on the basis of Russian state Duma, in 1999 we established European Club as a club for politicians from different fractions. Since that time some of my colleagues left the state Duma. Some came in, so now the Club is not uniting only deputies , members of the Parliament, but former deputies, experts, business people and some foreigners (like ambassadors) are honorable members of the Club. The main idea was to bring together people who can share the view on Europe as our common house.
One of our main dreams is Europe without dividing lines. From time to time we have meetings, not only in Russia, in Moscow – the last was in Brussels in December and the next will be in Paris on March 13. We needed an interface for the public. During the crisis in the Caucasus, we decided to have some kind of platform on the Internet, where we can directly speak to the public. Not with the help of newspapers, or magazines, or BBC as Mr. Putin said in the meeting. So we built the “Partnership and Success” website. People send us their articles and projects and we publish them without any kind of editing in the pages of our website. There are different pages – pages devoted to political discussions, to economical discussions, to bilateral affairs. In the near future we will have pages devoted to relations between regions in Europe and so on. In order to contribute you need to be a member of the club or an officer. An international board is in control of this website. There are eight members: four people from Russia and four from the EU. I am the chair of the board.

What is the overall aim? What are you trying to achieve with this website? What kinds of people will contribute?

We don’t have any kind of a special goal. This is an instrument for direct affairs between politicians and business people. A platform for dialogue. We are speaking also about high-level experts, but anyhow, even students may visit our websites and send contributions; but it is not our obligation to publish all notes, not like a business website. We can also have some kind of advertising, but it is not the advertising of somebody’s goods or services. Its advertising of conferences, ideas, projects which may be interesting for the both parts of Europe. This is not a voice of Russia or voice of Brussels; it’s just a platform for a dialogue.