Blair in Russia to build EU-US partnership

Saturday, 31 May 2003 12:00 AM

Ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) summit of pivotal world leaders in Evian, France, Prime Minister Tony Blair has flown to St. Petersburg, where he is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Talks are likely to focus on healing the apparent rift between the former superpower and allied powers who committed troops to ridding Iraq of Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Blair's visit comes as St. Petersburg, previously Leningrad under communist rule, celebrates her 300th anniversary.

In Russia's second city, he will meet some 40 of the world's top leaders, including US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, as well as France's anti-war Chirac and Germany's Schroder.

Mr. Blair yesterday was in the Polish capital, Warsaw, in a political move to convince voters to affirm accession to the European Union, ahead of the vote on June 7-8. There he delivered a speech condemning uninformed euro-scepticism.

In the speech, he said out and out hostility to Europe was unpatriotic, 'out-of-date,' and delusional.

The freshly penned draft EU constitution would not lead inexorably to a European 'superstate', he insisted, and rejected calls for a referendum on the constitutional treaty.

With Britain securing the omission of the word 'federal' in the treaty, Mr. Blair clarified the government's stance.

He said: 'We want a union of nations, not a federal superstate, and that vision is shared by the majority of countries and people in Europe.'

Moreover, in the wake of the politically schismatic Iraq war, which polarised EU and America and threatened to collapse transatlantic alliance building, the present diplomatic effort in Russia and France must focus on 'reconciliation' in order to curb countries 'drifting' further apart.

This was a 'crucial moment for the US and Europe, he said.

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