UPDATE 4-EU hopes to resolve dispute with Russia by summit

...

By David Brunnstrom

LUXEMBOURG, April 23 (Reuters) - The European Union said on Monday it hoped to resolve a dispute holding up a wide-ranging partnership pact with Russia before a summit next month, despite the failure of weekend talks with its main energy supplier.

After fresh talks with EU leaders in Luxembourg, Russia stressed its desire to conclude the new pact supposed to cover energy, trade, economic cooperation and human rights, but some EU diplomats said Moscow's refusal to end a 16-month-old ban on imports of Polish meat showed it was not interested.

The EU has been keen to start talks on the pact by the May 18 summit to reinvigorate ties and ease European worries that Russia is using its vast energy resources as a political weapon.

"We are still hopeful that we can arrive to an agreement to launch the negotiations at the summit," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told a joint news conference after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"This is our objective and we hope this is also the objective of the Russian party."

Lavrov said a new pact was in the interests of both sides.

"It is important for both Russia and the EU," he said. "We hope that a mandate will be adopted by the European Commission with regards to these talks ... in order to tap this enormous potential of our trade and economic cooperation."

EU-member Poland has been blocking the launch of the talks due to the Russian meat ban. Its Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said Warsaw had already made compromises aimed at a solution and was under no pressure from other EU states.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said talks could start only when all EU member states were ready. "We need to see how and whether this can be done," she said.

"WE GOT A 'NYET' FROM MOSCOW"

An EU ambassador said the EU had done everything to allow for a deal in weekend talks between Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou and Russian Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev.

"But we got a 'nyet' from Moscow ... That tends to support the feeling we had -- namely that Russia doesn't want this strategic partnership," he said, adding: "It's a fantasy to think one can pressurise Moscow."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Russia had made a deal conditional on inspections which "would drag things out for a very long time".

EU officials said that while it might not be possible to launch talks by the summit, they hoped they could at least announce the intention to do so when the leaders meet.

"I am only cautiously optimistic I must say," said External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson set a grim tone before the talks with Lavrov by saying on Friday that EU-Russia relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War -- remarks played down by both Solana and Lavrov.

Mandelson urged both sides to take a long-term view. He said that while Europe needed guarantees Russia would not cut off energy supplies, it had also to understand Russia's perception of EU encroachment into its sphere of influence.

The two sides are particularly at odds over the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo. The European Union backs a U.N. plan for its independence, while Russia -- a veto-holding member of the U.N. Security Council -- says any plan should have the support of Serbia, bitterly opposed to Kosovo's independence.

Both sides restated their positions on Monday.

Moscow has also been upset too by U.S. plans to put an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Soviet bloc states that are now EU and NATO members. (Additional reporting by Ingrid Melander and Yves Clarisse)

Keywords: EU RUSSIA/