Financial cooperation with Russia began in the early 1990s, under the TACIS programme. The idea was to help smooth Russia’s transition to democracy and the market economy, and was targeted at a whole range of sectors, not neglecting the social impact of the transition. Since 1991, some €2.8 billion of assistance was provided through the European Commission. A large number of TACIS projects will still be ongoing until 2013. Given the significant recent improvements in the Russian Federation’s fiscal position, the need for broad ranging financial assistance has disappeared. Russia herself has become a donor. Financial cooperation is now targeted to meet the objectives defined in the road maps to the EU-Russia Common Spaces. Cooperation is now carried out on the principle of co-financing by the EU and Russia. The amounts made available by the Commission have been reduced accordingly

 

The numbers – and the terminology

Up to €60m per annum are available to bolster the EU-Russia relationship in the four years from 2007, concentrated mostly on the four Common Spaces, academic and educational exchange, and cooperation with Russian regions. The total figure could rise to €100m depending on the level of Russian involvement in regional, cross-border and other programs.

 

Funding is sourced in the main from the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI). Priorities for cooperation, as described above, are set out in the national, interregional and cross-border indicative programs for 2007-2010, approved by EU Member States and agreed with the Russian Government. They set out respectively allocations for cooperation with the Russian federal authorities, and for cooperation between local authorities on either side of the Russia-EU border. A priority for cooperation is the higher education sector, where the EU has supported student and university exchanges through the Tempus and Erasmus Mundus programmes. In 2010 alone, more than 23 million Euros are available.

 

Russian republics and oblasts participate in a number of the cross-border [798 KB] programs set up by the European Commission (Kolarctic, Karelia, South-East Finland/Russia, Estonia/Latvia/Russia and Lithuania/Poland/Russia). The idea is to promote economic and social development in border areas; to tackle common environmental, health and security problems; and to encourage cross-border exchange and contacts. Funding is also made available for the Northern Dimension.

 

Funding for financial cooperation with Russia is also sourced from the Nuclear Safety Instrument, the Democracy and Human Rights Instrument and a number of other thematic programmes, and – if a crisis were to occur – from several instruments designed to respond to humanitarian or other crises.

 

Nuclear safety

The TACIS programme contributed since its beginnings in 1991 to improve nuclear safety in the Russian Federation with some €500 million.

 

Funding was dedicated to on-site assistance to nuclear sites in all parts of the Russian Federation, for example in Smolensk (West Russia), Sosnovy Bor (Leningrad Olast) and Kola (Arctic Russia), and to provide the necessary support by EU operators for nuclear safety improvements at nuclear power plants in Russia on a continuous basis. Such assistance focused on the areas of design safety, operating and surveillance conditions and the overall organization of operational safety.

 

The programme also supported the National Regulatory Authority of Russia. Through EU technical and financial assistance, the programme assisted in establishing the necessary legal framework. It also improved the overall safety culture through more formal and regular dialogue between plant operators and regulatory authorities, on the one hand, and their EU counterparts, on the other.

 

TACIS has also assisted in the safe management of radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel and in the improvement of nuclear safeguards. In this framework, it contributed €40 million to the nuclear window of the Northern Dimension Environmental Partnership (NDEP) - to which the Commission is one of the main contributors. The NDEP aims at tackling the situation in Northwest Russia, where the legacy of the Soviet Arctic fleet presents a major problem.

 

Our collaboration with our Russian partners in the domain of nuclear safety has encountered severe difficulties following the entry into force of the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation for the period 2007-2013. Failure to agree on a new Memorandum of Understanding and Financing Agreements for the implementation of the relevant 2007 and 2008 annual action programmes has led to the impossibility to foresee new nuclear safety cooperation projects with the Russian Federation.

 

For more information on funding opportunities see: http://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/where/neighbourhood/country-cooperation/russia/russia_en.htm.