Medvedev visits Brussels for his last EU summit

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will take part in the last Russia-EU summit of his presidential career in Brussels on Thursday, amid growing condemnation in Europe of Russia’s alleged parliamentary vote rigging. The summit begins on Thursday at 08.00 GMT and will be attended by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, the EU foreign affairs’ chief Catherine Ashton, the European Commission’s head, Jose Manuel Barroso and the energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger. Medvedev, who will be accompanied by Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Economic Minister Elvira Nabiullina, is expected to discuss steps toward visa-free travel with the EU as well as Russia’s possible bailout fund for Europe’s indebted economies. The Russian delegation, however, does not expect potentially divisive issues such as European missile defense or the recent parliamentary elections in Russia to be addressed at the summit. Medevedev’s visit to Brussels comes a day after the European parliament on Wednesday passed a resolution, calling for “new free and fair elections.” In a statement published on the European parliament’s web site, the lawmakers urge “an immediate and full investigation of all reports of fraud and intimidation in the Russian elections” and welcome Russian protest rallies “as an expression of the will of the people.” The Resolution stirred anger in Russia’s Public Chamber, which called the document “a provocation” since the lawmakers who passed the document “did not address real facts.” “This document is an outrageous interference into Russia’s domestic affairs and is an attempt to destabilize a political situation in our country,” the Public Chamber’s members said in a statement. The ruling United Russia party won almost half of the vote in the December 4 parliamentary elections, which secured it a simple majority in the State Duma with 238 seats out of 450. The elections sparked waves of protest rallies across the country with tens of thousands people demanding a rerun of the election, accusing the ruling party of massive fraud and falsification of votes. On Saturday opposition activists held the biggest rally in a decade in downtown Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, which brought together from 25,000 to 100,000 people, according to different estimates.