Tributes Paid to Yeltsin

European leaders paid tribute to Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first freely elected, post-communist president, after his death on Monday. Yeltsin played a key role in the collapse of the Soviet Union and introduced free-market democracy to Russia.

"He made a decisive contribution to establishing democracy and a market economy in Russia," said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. "That is deserving of our respect. He looked towards Europe and made a major contribution to the relations between our two countries and relations between the European Union and Russia."

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said he had "great respect" for Yeltsin, adding that the former Russian president contributed to "the well-being of the late 20th century."

Solana highlighted in particular Yeltsin's signing of the first Russia-NATO agreement in 1997.

"A true friend of Germany"

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Yeltsin was a campaigner for democracy and freedom and a true friend of Germany.

"His contribution to the development of relations between our two states will remain unforgotten," she said in a message of condolence to Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of Yeltsin's family.

Former chancellor Helmut Kohl called him a "great statesman," whose "contribution to Russo-German relations and world peace cannot be underestimated."

Yeltsin ushered in new Russian epoch

Several world leaders, including European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, recalled Yeltsin clambering onto a tank sent into Moscow in 1991 by communist hardliners attempting a coup in the dying days of the Soviet Union.

"He is best remembered when standing up to the coup d'etat aimed at restoring a dictatorial regime in Russia," Barroso said. "With great personal courage he had merit in defending freedom."

EU External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner agreed that the former Russian leader would be remembered for his contribution to democracy and a market economy in Russia.

Current Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Yeltsin, his presidential predecessor, oversaw the birth of a "new, democratic Russia" and declared Wednesday, when Yeltsin is scheduled to be buried, a day of mourning.

"With the title (of first Russian president) Boris Yeltsin entered the history of the country and of the world," Putin said in televised remarks. "A person on whose account an entire epoch began has left this world. A new, democratic Russia was born -- a free state, open to the world."

Not always good times

But EU leaders also noted that the successor to the first EU-Russia partnership agreement -- signed under Yeltsin's rule 1997 -- was now being blocked by a food embargo row between Moscow and Poland.

There are also strong differences of opinion between Moscow and Brussels on Russia's massive energy market -- which the Europeans would like to see made more transparent and open -- and on the future of Kosovo.

The 27 EU foreign ministers were due to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after their meeting, with the Russian crackdown against opposition supporters another bone of contention.