Given the enormous changes in Russia since 1997, and the EU’s 2004 expansion up to Russia’s border, the two sides in 2006 agreed to start negotiating a new agreement on issues such as trade, energy supplies, culture and education. But the talks fell foul of international problems. First Poland blocked the opening of talks in protest at a Russian ban on Polish meat and vegetable exports, then Lithuania vetoed them in protest at Russia’s closure of the oil pipeline to Lithuania’s only refinery. Lithuania lifted its veto in May, paving the way for the first set of talks on July 4. But following the Russian-Georgian conflict of August 7- 12, EU leaders decided to freeze the talks in protest at what they saw as Russia’s “disproportionate reaction” to Georgia’s attack on its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Talks were frozen “until troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to August 7.”