Russia and EU seek fresh start

Russia President Dmitry Medvedev stressed cooperation at a summit with European Union leaders on Friday, striking a softer pose than his tough-minded predecessor Vladimir Putin.

"We want to move forward to give a new impetus to our relations and overcome problems emerging in the course of their development," Medvedev told the summit, held in a flourishing Siberian oil town.

The centrepiece of the three-hour meeting is expected to be the formal launch of negotiations on a new framework agreement governing the at times testy relations between the EU and Russia, its third biggest trading partner.

The talks will also offer EU chiefs their first opportunity to assess Medvedev, who took office last month. Putin, now Russia's prime minister, is not attending.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that over dinner on Thursday evening he had a chance to informally get to know Medvedev.

"He seems to me to be a very open person who really wants to engage, he has a very open personality," said Barroso on Friday.

Medvedev is a close Putin ally but some analysts believe Putin deliberately chose him to set a more conciliatory tone at the Kremlin as Russia seeks billions of dollars in foreign investment to rebuild its crumbling infrastructure and develop its industry.

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said her first impressions from a dinner with the new Russian president on Thursday evening were positive.

"We are now in a phase of retuning our relationship because there are new personalities," she told reporters before the formal summit meeting. "...We do see this, I think sincere, wish to work together in a much closer way."

"We will have to see if this wish is translated into action," she added.

The EU has clashed with Moscow over human rights, democracy and independence for the former Serbia province of Kosovo -- all issues avoided at Thursday evening's dinner but which are expected to surface at Friday's formal session.

SECURITY PACT

Medvedev hosted the dinner at a restaurant located in a crystal pyramid on top of a hill dominating this settlement of 70,000 people on a river in the Siberian taiga forest.

The town has been largely rebuilt with oil money in recent years and its neat modern streets contrast sharply with most of Russia's crumbling Soviet-built infrastructure.

Over dinner, the Russian leader laid out to EU leaders his ideas about developing a new post-Cold War security pact for Europe to eventually replace NATO, an idea he first floated in Berlin earlier this month.

"The guests showed a considerable interest to the idea of working out a new collective security pact for Europe," a source in the Russian delegation said.

The last EU summit on Russian soil, hosted about a year ago by then-president Putin, was a tense affair.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel chided Russian police for interfering in an opposition protest rally and Putin clashed with her at a final news conference.

This time, the mood will be more courteous though differences remain under the surface, say diplomats.

The start of talks on the new partnership pact was held up for 18 months after objections from new EU members Poland and Lithuania, who wanted to settle bilateral arguments with their former Soviet master first. A fresh eve-of-summit trade row between Russia and EU member Finland over timber duties threatened to spoil the atmosphere.

Helsinki said it was considering taxing Russian goods transiting the country after Moscow raised duties on the export of Russian timber but Brussels officials played down the issue.

"This idea was only floated yesterday," said EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. "It is far too early for any of us to take any view on it."

Mandelson said he could understand why Finland was considering helping its timber processing industry but added that such a move would be considered as state aid and need approval from Brussels.

Helsinki says that higher Russian tariffs on raw timber exports hurt paper producers in Scandinavia. Russia says the move is needed to help its domestic timber processing industry.