The European Commission is looking forward to improved cooperation between Brussels and Moscow following the first meeting with new Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a summit in Siberia on Friday.
"Medvedev is very serious about cooperating more closely with the European Union," EU Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner said at the summit in the oil-rich city of Khanty Mansiysk.
A dinner Thursday evening with Medvedev, European Commission President Jose Manual Barroso and rotating EU President Janez Jansa, the Slovenian prime minister, was a pleasant opportunity to get to know each other and test the waters, she said, reported dpa.
Ferrero-Waldner stressed the EU's view that a new EU-Russia partnership and cooperation deal being negotiated in Khanty Mansiysk should set binding legal foundations for relations.
The EU delegation spent Thursday evening with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov watching Russia's defeat 3-0 at the hands of Spain in the Euro 2008 football championships in Vienna.