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Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, talks about tension between the EU and Russia during the summit in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia.

2008-27-06, Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia

The second day of the EU-Russia Summit, which started on the 26 june in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, began with a Plenary session. The delegation of the European Comission consists of the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, Comissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Comissioner for Trade Peter Mandelson. Javier Solana, the Secretary-General/High Representative for common foreign and security policy of European Union, is also a participant of the EU-Summit.
The EU-Russia Summit on 26 and 27 June 2008 -- is the first with President Dmitri Medvedev.

The Summit sees the launch of negotiations for the new EU-Russia Agreement for which the mandate was adopted by the EU Council of Ministers on 26 May 2008. The new Agreement will cover results-orientated political co-operation, the perspective of deep economic integration, a level playing field for energy relations based on the principles of the Energy Charter, closer relations in the field freedom, security and justice, and a mutual opening of the educational and scientific systems. The new agreement will build upon the current four Common Spaces, which are: Common Economic Space; Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice; Common Space of External Security and the Common Space of Research and Education.

The Summit also looks at issues of global concern, such as the stability of financial markets, the rise of Sovereign Wealth Funds, climate change and global warming, energy security and the current food crisis. This is an oppotunity for the EU and Russia to compare assessments of and approaches to these developments, as well as to see what scope there might be to work together more closely.
Khanty-Mansiysk was founded in 1930 and is an administrative centre of Khanty-Mansi Autonomus okrug and an oil production town in Russia. It is located on the Irtysh River, 15 km from its confluence with the Ob. The population as of the 2002 Census was 53,953.