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The new EU policy – first floated by Poland and Sweden in May – proposes signing “Association Agreements” with Azerbaijan Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia in the next few years and to “acknowledge the European identity and aspirations of these countries”, My WebpageAPA reports quoting EUobserver online resource. The draft communiqué underlines that the new pacts, which recall the association treaties signed with Poland or Lithuania prior to the 2004 round of enlargement, do not amount to a promise of future accession.
“The conclusion of Association Agreements will be without prejudice to the partners’ European aspirations.” But the EP is to contain measures designed to send “a clear and lasting political message of EU solidarity” and to “produce benefits perceived and recognized by citizens of the partner countries.” The moves include establishing “a single deep and comprehensive Free Trade Area, providing the basis for the development of a common internal market, such as the European Economic Area (EEA),” which the EU currently has with Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, said in the draft communiqué. The Eastern Partnership will aim to create visa free travel in the long-term, but to waive the cost of obtaining EU visas more quickly and to set up Common Application Centers in the six countries to help people enter the EU passport-free Schengen zone.
On the energy front, Memorandums of Understanding are to help guarantee EU energy security, leading to “joint management, and even ownership of pipelines by companies of supplier, transit and consumer countries.”
The draft communiqué indicates that Armenia should close its Medzamor nuclear plant and notes EU “concern” over energy infrastructure in conflict zones, such as a Russia-Balkans gas pipeline running through the disputed Moldovan region of Transdniestria.
The draft communiqué proposes holding an “Eastern Partnership Summit” in June 2009 to launch the project. Follow-up meetings of EU and Eastern Partnership foreign ministers are to take place each spring. “Senior officials” from the “27 + 5(6)” countries are to meet twice-yearly to prepare for the ministerials.
The European Partnership is to raise the EU’s per capita spending in the region from the current ?6 per head to ?12 per head by 2013 and ?20 per head by 2020, compared to the current ?30 per head in the Balkans. The shift will cost ?2.1 billion, atop the lost income of ?75 million per year as a result of waiving EU visa costs.
At the institutional level, the commission is to publish the final version of its EP communication on 3 December, in time for the French EU presidency’s last summit on 11 December to cement the text in its conclusions.
