CDU/CSU makes parliamentary inquiry on Kaliningrad. Duma disapproves: Kosachev

RIA Novosti. The Bundestag CDU/CSU group recently made an official inquiry to Germany's federal government on "the Konigsberg region's economic prospects with European Union enlargement". Russian parliamentarians harshly disapprove, MP Konstantin Kosachev said to the media today. He leads the international affairs committee of the State Duma, parliament's lower house.

The opposition inquiry cannot be considered to reflect the stances of the entire Bundestag, let alone Germany's official stance, points out a statement Mr. Kosachev's press service is circulating.

"This is a very awkward moment for the inquiry-the Duma is considering whether it is worthwhile at all to ratify the protocol to the Russia-EU partnership agreement, which spreads the effect of the instrument to the ten new EU countries," says Kosachev. Smooth contacts of the Kaliningrad Region, Russia's Baltic exclave, with the Russian mainland is among top priorities, Russian spokesmen stressed while signing the protocol.

The inquirers have shown a great difference of their stance on the exclave from what Russia-EU instruments have. Characteristically, they refer to the Kaliningrad Region as the Konigsberg. All that certainly alarms the Russian parliament, Kosachev goes on.

In fact, the inquiry galvanises doubts of Russia's and other East European countries' sovereignty over their particular areas, and of entire European settlement after World War II. The inquirers have done their country a bad turn just when Germany aspires to permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council, the Russian MP emphatically remarked.

He hopes the inquiry will find at the German top an evaluation it deserves, one that will comply with the spirit and the letter of international agreements to which Germany is signatory.