PanARMENIAN.Net
EU Lacks Knowledge about South Caucasus, Peter Semneby
Says
26.05.2006 18:38 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are
all members of the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy,
a development that Semneby said was deepening their
relationship with Brussels and would also entitle them
to increased aid. `We’re talking about hundreds of
millions of euros for each country. The EU will also
step up its representation in the countries, which
will mean there will be a larger degree of visibility
in the South Caucasus,’ European Union’s new special
representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby
stated in an interview with Thomas de Waal, the
Caucasus Project Coordinator and Editor at the
Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
`I will also spend some time trying to explain to the
public in the South Caucasus what the EU is about.
There is not a whole lot of knowledge to begin with.
To the extent that the EU is known, there are still a
lot of misunderstandings about what [it] is about.’
`I think there is also lack of knowledge in the EU
about the south Caucasus and its particular problems
and about the importance of this region for the EU,
and if possible this is something I would like to
engage on.’
Asked about the hopes of many people in the region who
dream of joining the EU one day, the special
representative was careful to reiterate that the
European Neighborhood Policy `does not contain a
membership perspective’.
`It does mean that the countries can achieve a lot of
the benefits of EU membership by working on the
implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy,’
he went on.
`There is a problem – and I am the first to admit that
– that since the membership perspective is not there
as a big carrot at the end, this deprives us of one of
the most powerful levers we had in encouraging the
countries of Central Europe to carry out painful reforms.’