These three were among the ten East and Central European countries to join the EU, May 1. As Moscow sees it, ethnic minorities' plight is the worst in Latvia, where ethnic Russians make more than 40 per cent of the population.
"The EU is to stand up more actively for minority rights. Now that Latvia is a European Union country, the problem is to be settled not between Latvia and Russia but within the Union, proceeding from its regulations and international legal norms," said the parliamentarian.
Mr. Andre also took up the Kaliningrad issue. The Kaliningrad Region, Russia's Baltic exclave, was once East Prussia, with the centre in Konigsberg. It went over to the Soviet Union in 1945, with the rout of nazi Germany in World War II. That was when the city changed its name.
"Kaliningrad is Russia's inalienable part. No one throughout Europe has ever put it to doubt, and Europeans would like to see the area exemplifying Russian links with the European Union. We want to see its lucrative geography used to the utmost to set standards for privileged Russia-EU partnership," the MP emphatically remarked.
Rene Andre and Jean-Louis Bianco, another French parliamentarian and Francois Mitterrand Institute President, arrived on their routine visit, June 16, to stay into this day. They held conference with Sergei Yastrzhembsky, President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for contacts with the European Union; with Konstantin Kosachev and Dmitri Rogozin-both prominent on the State Duma, parliament's lower house; and Richard Wright, head of the European Commission office in Russia.
