Paris, 2 December 2009 – The European Security and Defence Assembly (ESDA) said on Tuesday that it was in favour of Europe holding a broad dialogue with Russia, giving priority to “the search for solutions to the frozen conflicts”.

On the basis of a report entitled “Towards a new security architecture for Europe?” (Document 2053), submitted on behalf of the Political Committee by Mr Arcadio DÍAZ TEJERA (Spain, Socialist Group) and Mr Gerd HÖFER (Germany, Socialist Group), the Assembly took note of the draft for a European security treaty published by Russia and recommended that the European Union “respond more positively to the initiative taken by the Russian President to review the existing security architecture”.

According to the Rapporteurs “while there is a need in the medium and long term to develop broader concepts of security cooperation, it is necessary immediately to deepen practical cooperation with Russia. The frozen conflicts must be addressed as a priority. We need to sit down together and resolve them before we can envisage new institutions. Otherwise we will only move these issues on to another table and not solve anything, and give a false impression of being terribly busy but in fact achieve little”.

The Assembly also recommends encouraging “NATO to invite Russia to make a contribution, with its views, to the Alliance’s new Strategic Concept” and “supporting interparliamentary dialogue on the Euro-Atlantic security architecture”. On Thursday 3 December, a joint working group of the Assembly and the Russian Parliament (Council of the Federation and the Duma) is to be set up to engage in an in depth dialogue on how to move forward with European security.

The Assembly wishes to “deepen practical cooperation with Russia on Afghanistan, in particular with respect to training and equipping police forces and the transit of civil and military matériel”.

During the debate, Mr Vladimir CHIZHOV, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the European Union, expanded on Moscow’s intentions regarding Russian plans for a European security treaty (see Press Release No. 53).

The question as to whether Europe needs a new security architecture was put back on the international agenda in June 2008 by Russian President Dmitry MEDVEDEV, less than a month after he took office and before the war in Georgia brought Russia and NATO close to a cold war-style confrontation, shaking the foundations of the Euro-Atlantic security structures.

Russia regards the current set-up as “West-centric”, unsuited to preventing or responding to crises and over-reliant on NATO. According to Mr MEDVEDEV, any new security architecture should be based on a legally binding treaty signed not only by all OSCE-participating states but also by the existing security organisations, NATO, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO, whose member states are Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) and the OSCE itself.