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Russia spoils Eastern Partnership birthday party

24 April 2014, 10:47 CET
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Russia spoils Eastern Partnership birthday party

Cerninsky Palace, Prague

(PRAGUE) - Five years after its launch, the European Union's project to bring ex-Soviet states into the Western fold is mired in uncertainty as Moscow refuses to yield influence over its former fiefdom.

European leaders will mark the anniversary of the project this week in Prague, where the EU launched the Eastern Partnership in 2009 to counter Russian influence on Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

"The dramatic events in Ukraine... persuade me that continuing the Eastern Partnership project is crucial for developing the cooperation between our eastern neighbours and the EU," Czech President Milos Zeman said in a statement on the anniversary website ahead of the Thursday-Friday meeting.

Spearheaded by Poland and Sweden, the project has sought to integrate the partners into the EU economy, facilitate the visa regime for their citizens in order to tackle illegal immigration, and boost energy security.

But five years on, the project faces an uncertain future and needs a major overhaul, says Elzbieta Kaca, an Eastern Partnership expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs.

"The Ukrainian crisis showed Russia is not ready to cooperate economically with the EU in the Eastern Partnership region, it treats EU projects as competitive ones and counteracts it by all means," she told AFP.

Some of the former Soviet states see the partnership as a path to joining the EU, but the bloc's 28 members seem reluctant to welcome newcomers, chiefly because of immigration concerns.

Still, Georgia and Moldova took a first step towards membership late last year when they initialled association deals with the EU at an Eastern Partnership summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius.

But Armenia refused to initial the agreement and Ukraine, which had made the most progress towards membership, stunned the EU by opting against signing the association deal at the 11th hour.

The refusal sparked three months of pro-EU protests in Ukraine that led to the current crisis, which has seen Russia seize the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine.

"From time to time you hear it said in the EU that the Eastern Partnership was a mistake, because it 'provoked' Russia into acting aggressively," said Slawomir Debski, director of the Warsaw-based Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.

"Those who proclaim such views don't realise that Russia is fighting against not just this or that EU policy, but rather the democratic system reflected in all EU activity."

- 'Revamp needed' -

Ukraine's new government has vowed to continue on the pro-European path -- a road less popular with other partnership countries.

"Belarus and Azerbaijan... have remained reluctant in terms of stepping on to the integration path with the EU and instead have focussed on visa issues," Kaca said.

Vit Benes, a researcher at the Prague-based Institute of International Relations, said the project has been a success for focussing Europe's attention on its eastern neighbours, but "its results are mixed when it comes to specific goals such as talks on association agreements".

"These things don't depend merely on the EU's will to deepen integration with neighbours, but also on the neighbours and on the pressure Russia exerts on them to refrain from deeper cooperation with the EU."

The Prague meeting between the EU and the Eastern Partnership countries comes midway between the Vilnius summit and the next set for 2015 in Riga, and it comes at a crucial time.

"We are facing at the moment the most serious crisis in Europe since the end of World War II," EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule told the European Parliament last week.

"I do believe that it is time to show an even stronger, more determined and resolute commitment to the Eastern Partnership."

Experts have agreed the project needs a revamp, but its shape remains unclear.

"The Eastern Partnership is in complete disarray. The time plan and the scope of the project is basically out of the window," said Jan Techau, director of the Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe.

"It cannot be a one-size-fits-all policy any longer," he said.

Benes said Ukraine remained key to any future revamp.

"Any attempt at forecasting the future situation, any revamp of the Eastern Partnership, will have to wait until we see the result in Ukraine," he told AFP.

Eastern Partnership


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