By Mark John LJUBLJANA, March 28 (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers will aim on Friday to narrow longstanding differences on dealing with a resurgent Russia and ready the bloc to start talks with Moscow on a new strategic partnership. EU countries are torn between competing desires to protect business and energy interests in Russia and to raise concerns over human rights and its treatment of ex-Soviet states. Some EU officials see the arrival of President-elect Dmitry Medvedev as a chance to reshape ties with Russia, while others question how free a hand he will have with his predecessor Vladimir Putin, due to retain influence as his prime minister."We have a post-Putin but still half-Putin era," said one EU official before EU foreign ministers begin two days of talks in Slovenia on Friday. "What are we doing with it? Can we go the same way, do we want to go the same way or change?" the official said. EU President Slovenia wants the ministers to agree a common line for the EU's first summit in Siberia in June. Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel wants by then to have launched negotiations on a new EU-Russia partnership spanning trade, energy, human rights and political cooperation. Poland and Lithuania vetoed the start of talks in 2006 after Moscow banned imports of Polish meat and cut off oil supplies to a Lithuanian refinery that was sold to a Polish company rather than a Russian rival. The new Polish government has agreed to lift its objection after the embargo was ended, but Vilnius is holding out and has added the case of a missing businessman and "frozen conflicts" in Georgia and Moldova to the oil issue, diplomats say. "The French, Germans, Italians and British want to move forward, the Nordics will criticise the absence of OSCE observers at the elections, and the Baltics and Poles will raise their neighbourhood problems with Russia," the EU official said. Separately, EU and Russian officials discussed Moscow's long-delayed World Trade Organisation (WTO) bid on Thursday but did not reach a breakthrough on the stumbling block issue of Russia's export duties, a European Commission spokesman said. Analyst Mark Leonard at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think tank urged the EU to put its relations with Russia under formal review to iron out what he said were deep-rooted differences on how to deal with Russia. "There is no real agreement among member states about what kind of country we are dealing with ... that's why the relationship keeps getting held up by bilateral problems." Foreign ministers will also discuss China's suppression of pro-independence protests in Tibet, another issue which for Europe pits lucrative trade and investment ties against human rights concerns. Some senior EU politicians, including European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, have mooted a boycott of the Olympic Games opening ceremony, but others vowed to attend. Ministers will also seek to offer tangible incentives to Western Balkans countries to pursue European integration and turn their backs on nationalism, despite heightened tension over Kosovo's secession from Serbia. (Additional reporting by Paul Taylor and Marja Novak in Ljubljana; editing by Andrew Roche)
Members of the 'Serb public league' display a poster of Russia's President Vladimir Putin and wave flags during a protest meeting against Kosovo's declaration of independence, and the signature for referendum ...
