ABSTRACT
In March 2000, the chief diplomats of the United States, Russia, and the European Union (EU) held a joint meeting in Lisbon for the first time in post-Cold War history. The event was depicted as a "troika" or "world politburo" in the Russian press, and viewed positively in that it appeared to promise that Russia would, from now on, be treated as an "equal" of the Americans and Europeans. German-Russian disputes over aid and finance likewise slowed the process of EU-Russian rapprochement. When the EU began to thaw relations with Russia, Germany strongly criticized the war in Chechnya. EU enlargement has begun to raise fears of isolating the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad - raising Russian fears of both a geostrategic and "economic blockade". The dilemma is that both the EU countries and the United States have been reluctant to open their markets to Russian products, largely in fear of dumping highly subsidized goods, such as steel.
