Kaliningrad is surrounded by Poland and Lithuania. EU officials are insisting that residents of the city will have to seek visas to travel through the two countries on their way to and from Russia. Russian president Vladimir Putin is demanding travel corridors be established so Russian nationals can come and go as they currently do. The issue "met with no understanding" by EU officials, Putin told the press after the meeting, and added that he considers the question "a qualitative test of our relations with the EU."

The summit was supposed to showcase agreements between Moscow and the European Union on economic issues. EU officials have been demanding Russia "liberalize" its vast energy resources, that is, open them up for capitalist exploitation. Brussels threatened to block Moscow’s attempts to join the World Trade Organization unless it closes a gap between the domestic and export prices it charges for oil and gas. Pascal Lamy, EU trade commissioner, said the price difference represents a subsidy to local industry.

Gas, electricity, and rail lines remain nationalized in Russia. Gazprom, the state energy company, sells gas on the domestic market for around $15 a 1,000 cubic meters, while the export price stands at $95 per 1,000 cubic meters.

On the eve of the summit the EU proclaimed Russia had a "market economy status," lessening the threat that Russian exports of steel and other goods will be met with antidumping tariffs by EU countries. In return, Russian officials committed themselves to the "gradual elimination of restrictions on trade and other steps aimed at liberalization of its energy markets and the gradual implementation of market principles in energy policies."

The Bush administration also gave Russia "market economy" status, but Moscow is pressing for exemption for the Jackson-Vanik amendment, which also limits normal trade relations.

The Financial Times noted of the EU declaration: "Of course, Russia still falls short of being a genuine market economy in many ways, as it slowly unravels the state domination of its economy. The European Union move is more a recognition of progress towards market relations than of their achievement."

Following the Bush-Putin summit, as the U.S. president was on his way to meet with top officials on the continent, the paper noted that "Europe should be in a better mood. Germany is united. The cold war is over. The European Union is about to embark on an historic enlargement eastwards.

"But collectively, America’s European Union allies are in a grumpy mood, not only because of Washington’s growing uni-lateralist stance on trade, global warming, and other foreign policy issues, over which former President Bill Clinton was just as unilateralist."

The Times worried that the "rapprochement between the two former cold war enemies [Moscow and Washington] could lead to European leaders being excluded from future arms control negotiations covering nuclear or conventional weapons. Europe, they add, will become an economic superpower destined to provide a bottomless purse for rebuilding war-torn states, but incapable of a matching security role."  
 
 
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