EU SUMMIT WELCOMES EASTERN PARTNERSHIP INITIATIVE
Xinhua
Dec 12, 2008
BRUSSELS, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) — European Union (EU) leaders on Friday
welcomed the Eastern Partnership initiative proposed by the European
Commission last week, which aims to significantly strengthen EU policy
with regard to its eastern partners.
The assembled heads of state called on the EU Council to study the
proposal and report back with a view to the initiative being approved
at the 27-nation bloc’s summit next March, said a draft document
released after the conclusion of a two-day EU summit Friday.
The union aims to officially launch the Eastern Partnership at a
summit meeting with partner countries organized by the incoming Czech
presidency of the EU in the first half of next year.
EU leaders believe that the Eastern Partnership would help the
partner countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova
and Ukraine make progress in their reform process by contributing to
their stability and further movement toward the EU, said the document.
The Partnership foresees free trade, easier travel to the EU for
citizens of these nations, enhanced energy security arrangements
benefiting all concerned, and increased financial assistance, security
and defense consultations, as well as far-reaching economic integration
with the EU, the document added.
Under the plan, the EU will triple its aid to the six partner countries
to 1.5 billion euros (1.95 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020.
The EU summit also endorsed guidelines adopted at last month’s meeting
between the group’s foreign ministers and their counterparts from
the members of the Barcelona Process Union for the Mediterranean,
and called for further ambitious implementation of this initiative
to establish the Union for the Mediterranean in all its dimensions.