Today the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov is in the Hague on an official visit, during which he is intended to have a meeting with his Dutch colleague Maxim Verhagen and with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende and to discuss a number of questions of the improvement of the contract and legal basis of the EU-Russia relations.

Six deputies of the RF State Duma, being members of the observation group of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, will arrive to the USA to observe the presidential elections. The head of the observation group is the Vice-Chairman of the RF State Duma Committee on International Affairs Alexander Kozlovsky.

Today in the framework of the EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council, the negotiations between Russia and EU took place. The Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France Bernard Kouchner and the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic – next country presiding over the EU — Karl Shwartzenberg participated in it.

On October 28 the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the countries-participants of the international program “Northern Dimension” had a meeting in Saint-Petersburg.

Today the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois has arrived to the Russian Federation on a formal visit, at the invitation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II, who paid a visit to the capital of France last year.