CURIOUS ENCOUNTER

by RAY FLEMING
YESTERDAY'S informal gathering of the 25 leaders of the European Union in Finland was a curious affair. The much-heralded meeting with President Putin turned out to be limited to two hours and to take place over dinner. Because the maths didn't work out - 25 into 120 minutes would give each EU leader only four minutes at most to share their thoughts with Mr Putin and to hear his reply, and President Chirac alone would require twice that time - or perhaps for other reasons, the Finnish presidency decided that it would speak on behalf of the whole of the EU throughout the dinner. To this end ideas were exchanged and consolidated over a luncheon. Whether all the EU presidents and prime ministers were able to remain mute during dinner will no doubt emerge in due course; several had wanted to speak plainly to the Russian president on human rights issues and would have been annoyed to be prevented from doing so. For his part President Putin was probably amused by the Finnish insistence on only a EU party line being presented to him; he would almost certainly have enjoyed hearing the 25 leaders disagreeing amongst themselves on energy supplies or global warming. But there is a serious point to be observed about this meeting: the EU is the world's largest trading bloc and contains several of the world's principal industrialised nations. Yet President Putin could find only two of hours of his time to spend with its leaders.