Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will hold talks with his Finnish counterpart and senior EU officials here on Friday with Moscow's attitude to Georgia and its massive energy supplies topping the agenda, a Finnish spokesman said on Thursday.
The meeting comes just weeks ahead of a formal EU-Russia summit in Helsinki on November 24, where both sides will be hoping to discuss terms for a new Partnership and Co-operation Agreement as the current one expires on November 30, 2007.
"Georgia is the biggest issue, but there are issues concerning energy," Counsellor Paivi Laine, of the Finnish foreign ministry's Russian unit, told AFP from Helsinki. Finland currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met with EU leaders at an informal dinner in Lahti, Finland, last month, when the European leaders appeared split over their attitude to Moscow.
The main veteran EU member states were stressing the need for a reliable and open Russian energy market while some of the newer, former Soviet bloc, states, sought a harder line on human rights.
A lower level EU-Russia meeting next Wednesday will concentrate on human rights issues.
On energy, some European leaders at their informal Finnish summit had trumpeted the need to diversify their sources while seeking a secure Russian supply of oil and gas.
The European Union, which gets a quarter of its gas and oil from Russia, was eager to receive guarantees over energy supplies on the basis, as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso put it, of reciprocity, transparency and market opening, while not "over-politicising" debate about relations between Russia and the bloc.
"Because the summit in Lahti was quite successful we hope that this atmosphere will carry on" in Brussels, said Laine.
The Europeans are, however, concerned about Russia's recent decision to develop the huge Shtokman gas field without foreign partners, and threats to halt a project off Russia's Pacific coast run by Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell on environmental grounds.
Laine saw no contradiction between seeking to diversify energy supplies and seeking closer co-operation in the sector with Russia.
"The interdependence between the EU and Russia in energy really is so huge that I don't think this is so conflicting," she said.
Russia wants the European Union to continue to be the main consumer of its energy, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Monday
during a visit to Portugal.
"It is obvious that the EU is interested that Russia continue to be one of its main suppliers of energy just as Russia is interested that the EU continue to be its main consumer," he said.
Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana will also be hoping for more positive news, during their talks with Lavrov, on the situation regarding Georgia.
Russia has cut off transport ties, deported hundreds of Georgian citizens, and cracked down on Georgian businesses in the worst dispute between the two since a 2003 revolution brought a pro-Western leadership to power in Georgia.
Georgia has long been irked by what it sees as Russian support for its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, while Moscow accuses Tbilisi of planning military action there.
In July EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner announced a draft version of the commission's negotiating position for the next EU-Russia Agreement.
While the commission wants the partnership agreement in particular to consolidate the EU-Russia energy relationship, its parameters will be broad.
The commission also wants the new agreement to be based on recognition of common values such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It also hopes the agreement will adopt ambitious objectives on political and external security co-operation, effective multilateralism, provisions on the fight against organised crime, WMDs, migration and asylum, and counter-terrorism.