EU TIES

    If the U.S. agreement on WTO accession can be reckoned as a major achievement for Moscow, then ties between the EU and Russia needed some extra work to move forward.

    Russia and the EU signed an agreement that eased visa rules at the Sochi summit in May. The visa agreement would facilitate the issuing of short-stay visas for some Russian and EU citizens, including students, civil servants, culture workers and journalists.

    But the 25-member alliance failed to start negotiations on a new, more ambitious cooperation agreement with Russia at the EU-Russia summit in October because of Poland's veto. The negotiation mandate requires the unanimous approval of all EU member countries.

    Warsaw demanded that Moscow lift its year-long ban on Polish meat imports, saying the restriction was politically motivated. But Russia maintained that the embargo had been imposed over food safety worries.

    The Polish stance has disappointed other EU members and drawn criticism from Kremlin officials, but Moscow said it was ready to launch the talks at any time.

    Russia "will be patient to wait for" the EU to get a mandate, Putin said after the summit in Finland, which holds the current EU presidency.

    The new pact will focus on wide-ranging areas such as energy, trade, investment and human rights, and aims to replace the current decade-old agreement on partnership and cooperation that expires next year. The existing deal would remain in force until anew deal is reached.

    But there were things that did move forward.

    At the Helsinki summit, the EU succeeded in persuading Russia to phase out charges on European airlines for flying over Siberia by the end of 2013, settling a two-decade-old dispute over the matter.

    European carriers pay more than 330 million euros (about 440 million U.S. dollars) annually in charges for flying over Siberia.