KHABAROVSK, May 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev opened an EU-Russia summit on Friday in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, inviting participants to discuss the economic crisis, energy cooperation and European security.
He said the themes had already been discussed at an informal dinner on the eve of the summit with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Czech President Vaclav Klaus and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
"The exchange, in my opinion, was rather interesting," Medvedev said. "Probably, there is sense in returning to the financial and economic crisis, to talk about the state of affairs in the energy sphere, to talk about formation of new architecture of European safety, to talk about all the questions that today are pertinent to relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union."
Russian presidential press secretary told reporters the EU had expressed readiness to discuss Russia's proposals for a new international legal basis for energy cooperation, and supported its efforts to hold a Middle East peace conference in Moscow later this year.
"The European side has expressed readiness to discuss the Russian proposals on energy security and agreed that the existing mechanisms do not allow all the problems to be solved," Natalya Timakova said.
"Everyone has supported this initiative," she said of the Middle East conference.
Timakova also said that issues connected with Iran and Afghanistan, and struggle against the Somali pirates were also discussed at a working breakfast on Friday morning.
She added that there was "very little" discussion of the situation in the Caucasus regarding relations with Georgia and Russia's recognition of the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
"On Georgia, Solana very briefly laid out the fixed position of the European Union concerning the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia," the press secretary said.
Medvedev called the EU-Russia summits a "fine tradition" and described Khabarovsk as being "on the eastern border of the general space that can be called 'Greater Europe.'"
A Kremlin source told RIA Novosti on Thursday that the EU delegation could propose cutting the biannual summits to one a year.
