London (Platts)--12Nov2009/744 am EST/1244 GMT

Climate change and energy are to feature high on the agenda at an EU-Russia summit to be held in Stockholm on November 18, Swedish Europe Minister Cecilia Malmstrom said late Wednesday.

Addressing the European Parliament in Brussels, Malmstrom, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said the presidency would be seeking to promote strategic partnership with Russia at the summit.

"We need Russia if we are to deal with global challenges in an effective way," she said, stressing that, "Close cooperation between Russia and EU is important if we are to achieve a result [at the global climate change summit next month] in Copenhagen. Russia has started to look at tangible and comparable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."

EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner added that "Russia has the scope to make a very substantial contribution to climate change given its enormous scope for emissions reduction."

"Energy is important too," said Malmstrom. "We will express our disappointment that Russia recently withdrew from the Energy Charter Treaty," Malmstrom added, referring to the framework treaty for facilitating trade and investments in the energy sector which Russia signed up to in the mid-1990s but never ratified. Earlier this year, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev floated an alternative proposal to the ECT which the European Commission has dismissed as inadequate.

Malmstrom said talks on energy would also focus on security of gas supplies this winter, following last winter's price dispute between Russia and Ukraine which led to drastic gas shortages in several EU states that are reliant on Russian gas supplies. "We hope than an enhanced early warning system will be brought into being so that transit or export of gas to EU will not be reduced if there are disputes in the future," Malmstrom said.

--Paul Whitehead, paul_whitehead@platts.com