Russian move complicates EU summit: analysts

(BRUSSELS) - Russia's recognition of two breakaway Georgian regions Tuesday apes Europe's support for Kosovo's independence and further complicates an emergency EU summit on Georgia next week, analysts said.

European officials were queuing up to condemn Moscow's move to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia and to dismiss any parallels with Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in February.

"This contradicts the principle of territorial integrity, a principle based on the international law of nations and for this reason it is unacceptable," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in the Estonian capital Tallinn, summing up the mood.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has described the Kosovo-Georgia parallel as "completely bogus."

However Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia's mission to NATO recently summed up his position succinctly: ""With the recognition of Kosovo, they opened Pandora's box."

A few EU nations, Spain in particular, have refused to recognise Kosovo, fearing like Moscow that such a move might encourage separatists elsewhere, in Spain's case among its own regional entities.

A member of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's team, who worked intensively on the Kosovo issue, denied that Russia's move was a reponse to Europe's support for Kosovo independence, which Moscow strongly opposed.

However, the source agreed that the perceived parallels weaken the EU's arguments over Georgia.

For Andrew Wilson, senior policy analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, there's the rub.

"Clearly Russia has used the language of Kosovo as a precedent... having spent most of the build-up to Kosovo's independence and the immediate aftermath decrying it as a kind of assault on international law," he told AFP.

It is too simplistic for the West to say that Kosovo isn't a precedent, he said.

"I think we have to be much more precise in saying what is a parallel and what is not.

"Clearly there are points of comparison" in that you are dealing with recognition of separatists' ambitions against the will of the state capital.

Nevertheless, Wilson stressed that in largely ethnic-Albanian Kosovo there was a "demonstrated campaign of ethnic cleansing" and that, while the UN did not give the green light for a military response there, it did condemn Serbia's campaign.

For European parliamentarian Joost Lagendijk, a member of the assembly's foreign affairs committee, the parallel -- whether real or perceived -- is very clear.

"It's the ultimate revenge of the Russians," he said. "Tit-for-tat. If you do that to us, we'll do the same to you."

From a historical point of view "there is no comparison," he argued, "but from a political propaganda point of view, they (the Russians) will present it as revenge for Kosovo."

The 27 European Union nations were already divided on how to handle relations with Moscow before Tuesday's announcement, following Russia's military campaign in Georgia and failure to pull its troops out of the country in line with a French-brokered peace deal.

The differences within the EU were highlighted earlier this month when pro-Georgia leaders of former Soviet-bloc nations -- Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia -- travelled to Tbilisi with the message that the peace plan did not provide sufficient protection for Georgia.

Britain has also said that the EU needs to reconsider a planned formal partnership with Russia, covering issues ranging from energy supply to defence cooperation.

It was only last month that talks on a new strategic accord between Russia and the EU got properly under way having being blocked by Polish and Lithuanian objections.

On the other hand, France, Germany, Italy and Spain lead the group of EU nations which believe ties with Moscow must not be allowed to deteriorate due to Russia's importance in handling other world problems and its key role in providing oil and gas to Europe.

Russia's move will "definitely complicate the summit" in Brussels on Monday, said Lagendijk.

"Poland will say: 'We warned you the Soviets are back'... with this it will be more difficult for the moderates to say: 'We should not alienate Russia'."