This article, result of a workshop about the future of EU/Russia relations on December, 2, 2005, has been published for the first time in the collection 'Russie.NEI.Viions', n°10(c) of the Russian/NIS Center at Ifri.Abstract

Increasing the number of actors participating in the daily dialogue between Russia and the EU can not only contribute to solving important issues surrounding these bilateral relations but also, more broadly speaking, to those surrounding the integration process within Europe itself. The inclusion of business representatives and non-profit organizations in this process would make it easier to gage the different social, economic, and political behaviors within “Old Europe” and overcome the “democratic deficit” resulting from the absence of citizen participation in the management of Russia-EU relations, and its monopolization by state bureaucracies.Timofeï Bordatchev, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs, Director of Studies(Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, SVOP), is Senior Research Associate (Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences).