EU must respect Russia over enlargement - Chirac

French President Jacques Chirac said yesterday the European Union must show more respect for Russia's national interests as Moscow adjusts to the bloc's enlargement to include former Soviet satellite states.

One day after the EU demanded Moscow stop wrangling over a trade pact that affects states that are about to join the bloc, Mr Chirac said the Union had in the past been too tough on Moscow.

"Russia is making an enormous effort to regain its rightful place in the world," Mr Chirac told a news conference during a two-day visit to Hungary. "We must convince Russia that we regard its efforts with friendship."

The EU wants Russia to automatically extend its trade pact, known as the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA), to the eight east European nations that will become members on May 1, together with Malta and Cyprus.

Moscow says this would damage its trade with the EU and the bloc's new members. It wants a broader agreement that would deal with its demand for visa-less travel and other non-trade issues.

The impasse could result in sharply higher Russian customs duties on goods from its main trading partners among new members - mainly the biggest of them, Poland.

EU foreign ministers refused on Monday to bow down, saying after a meeting in Brussels that the bloc could discuss Russia's concerns only after the PCA is extended to new members.

Mr Chirac struck a more conciliatory tone. He said Russia's concern about the fate of Russian-speaking minorities in the Baltic states, three former Soviet republics which now will be part of the EU, was part of the equation.

"Europe did not always understand Russia's economic needs," he said. "Russia has minority issues which we need to take into account."

Mr Chirac's words are likely to reinforce the feeling across eastern Europe that France's embrace of new EU members is at best lukewarm, while in Russia it sees an ally in its efforts to counter-balance the global influence of the United States.