According to him, no progress was achieved in the solution of these problems.
Russia and the European Union signed the protocol in connection with the EU enlargement in late April 2004. On the whole, we see the aggravation of conditions of cargo transit to the Kaliningrad region via Lithuanian territory, Mr. Yastrzhembsky said to this effect.
He believes that measures taken by the EU were insufficient.
"We offer to make a special agreement on the Kaliningrad transit. Brussels does not agree to this. However, regardless of the conclusion of this agreement, the European Union has fixed political and juridical obligations. They imply that the EU enlargement should not be fraught with worsened conditions of cargo transit to the Kaliningrad region," Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.
Commenting on the problem of the Russian-speaking minorities in Latvia and Estonia, the presidential envoy noted, "We have the right to raise this problem without dramatizing the situation and to say that we are dissatisfied with the rates of naturalization of Russian-speaking non-citizens in Latvia and Estonia".
Mr. Yastrzhembsky was the main rapporteur at the international conference "Relations between Russia and the European Union after the EU enlargement", which opened in Brussels.
"I do not think that we shall find the solution of these problems at once. Mr. Barroso [new President of the European Commission] and his new team have just started working. The fact that they will get relevant information from the Russian President himself is highly important for their understanding of the atmosphere and problems of Russian-EU relations," Mr. Yastrzhembsky noted.
He is convinced that from this point of view the summit will be useful because it will acquaint Mr. Barroso's team with these problems.
