EU leaders will call at a summit this week for a new, joint energy strategy that will give Russia a central role as a gas and oil supplier to the 25-nation bloc.
At a two-day summit starting tomorrow, the leaders are to order a deep re-think of energy policy in the face of challenges ranging from record prices to liberalization of EU markets, according to draft conclusions prepared by EU's current Austrian presidency.
But a top priority will be to ensure a stable flow of energy supplies from abroad, which inevitably means closer ties with Moscow as Russia becomes an increasingly important supplier of gas and oil to the EU.
Russia supplies around 20 percent of the natural gas used by Europe -- the world's second largest energy market -- but fears have grown about over-reliance on the resources following Moscow's gas war with Ukraine.
The crisis in January reduced the volume of gas piped to western Europe across the former Soviet state, and exposed weaknesses in the EU's energy policy as well as highlighting the influence of energy on foreign policy.
"The gas crisis at the beginning of the year showed us that the theme of energy can not be dealt with alone but together at the European level," Austrian Chancellor Walter Schuessel said in his invitation to his counterparts for this week's summit in Brussels.
Despite the EU's growing dependence on Russia, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso -- who was in Moscow last week to talk energy -- said on Tuesday that the country needed to sell energy to Europe as much as the EU needed to buy it.
"I believe the leverage we have is strong because we are the main client of Russia, so we are interdependent in a way," he told reporters in Brussels.
"Russia of course has an interest in selling gas and oil. We also have an interest in having that security of supply from Russia," he said.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson warned that EU members "have not got the relationship with Russia right" and that they needed to stand united when they bargain with Moscow.
"Europe's leaders have sometimes been tempted to compete with each other in vying for a close personal relationship with President Vladimir Putin," he said in an article published on Tuesday in the International Herald Tribune.
"But Europe will only be able to negotiate successfully with Russia if we determine first, together as a union, how we want our relationship to develop," Mandelson said.
Concretely, the EU is eager for Moscow to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty -- which sets the rules for the international energy trade -- but Moscow remains opposed.
"I think the Russian authorities will keep their opposition to a ratification of the energy charter," Barroso said.
"What I think is positive is that the president of Russia told me that he is ready to engage in a bilateral negotiation with the European Union on those matters," he added.
But to limit Europe's reliance on Russia, EU leaders will also task the European Commission to study other sources such as new pipelines and shipments of liquefied natural gas, which can be shipped in from overseas in special tankers.
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