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»
This material was prepared with support from the A.M. Gorchakov Public Diplomacy Fund and the
Embassy of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Slovakia.
THE FIRST Russian-Slovak discussion forum, or-
ganized by the A.M. Gorchakov Public Diplomacy
Fund together with the Slovak Foreign Policy Asso-
ciation and with assistance from the Russian Em-
bassy in Slovakia and the Slovak Ministry of Foreign
and European Affairs, took place on May 26, 2016
in Bratislava.
The forum was opened by Russian Ambassador Ex-
traordinary and Plenipotentiary in Slovakia A.L. Fe-
dotov and State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs Lukas Parizek.
The event was attended by diplomats and experts from the Moscow State Institute of Interna-
tional Relations and the Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, the
Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, the Centre of Interna-
tional and Regional Policy (ENGIN) (St. Petersburg), and the Institute of Energy and Geopol-
itics. Slovakia was represented at the forum by the heads of the relevant departments of the
Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, experts of the Slovak Foreign Policy Associ-
ation, the Slovak Academy of Sciences, and the Slovak Security Policy Institute, as well as by in-
dependent foreign policy and international relations analysts.
The forum addressed the current aspects of bilateral and multilateral relations, in particular the
status and prospects for Russia-EU collaboration in the context of the Slovak presidency in the
European Council, energy cooperation, European security and the fight against international
terrorism, the Ukraine crisis, and Russia-NATO relations.
Experts discussed the causes of the cooling in Russia-EU relations and prospects for the re-
sumption of dialogue.
It was noted that the vacuum of mutual distrust led to the quick destruction of the apparently
solid foundation of our relations. At the same time, the EU's programmatic documents, which
described Russia as its "natural strategic partner," have not been reviewed yet. However, the lack
of a "basic agreement" between Russia and the Eu-
ropean Union and the freezing of sectoral coopera-
tion formats do not make it possible to break the
deadlock.
Alexei Fedotov
,
Ambassador Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation in the Republic of
Slovakia
How does Moscow see the current status and
prospects for the development of cooperation with
Russia-Slovakia: A Frank Dialogue