Polish President tells EU to get tough with Russia

Poland's President urged the European Union yesterday to stand up to Russian "imperialism" and insist Moscow fully comply with the ceasefire accord which ended a brief war in Georgia in August.

President Lech Kaczynski has long championed Georgia's cause in its conflict with Russia, rushing to Tbilisi to underline Polish solidarity with the ex-Soviet republic during the five-day war over the rebel territory of South Ossetia.

"The Georgian issue is a test of whether we can prevent the rebirth of (Russian) imperialism which, as history has shown us, is never interested in making concessions," Mr Kaczynski said in an open letter to José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission.

"Without doubt, Russia is a very important neighbour of the EU. However, we have the right to expect from Russia, which benefits from intensive relations with EU countries, that it will respect all the values our Union is based on."

The EU recently agreed to relaunch talks on December 2 on a broad partnership pact frozen after Russia's invasion of Georgia.

During a visit to Warsaw yesterday, the EU's External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner defended the decision to re-engage with Russia.

"We felt that given the inter-dependence between Russia and the European Union it was in our mutual interests to go on negotiating," she told reporters.

Ms Ferrero-Waldner, who also held talks later with Mr Kaczynski and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, added a formal pact would give the EU a firm basis for dealing with problems.