Brussels, 09/12/2009 (Agence Europe) - There was general satisfaction and a few critical words after the first meeting between EU foreign affairs ministers and the six Eastern Partnership countries, which was held in Brussels on December 8. “We see an important potential in the Eastern Partnership but we need to speed up the project activities”, declared the foreign affairs minister from Belarus, Sergey Martinov, during the press conference following the meeting. Together with the Ukraine and Lithuania, Belarus has already proposed around 20 projects that are still waiting to be carried out. His counterpart from Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov stated: “We look for more real and concrete results”. He wants to be able to benefit from the strength and cooperation provided by the Eastern Partnership, which seeks to align the standards and the norms of his country with those applied in the EU. “We want to live upon the norms and standards of the EU”, he declared. Several ministers highlighted the need to make rapid progress in the area of visa facilitation. The Armenian minister, Edward Nalbandian, said that improving opportunities for citizens from beneficiary countries to travel to the EU was crucial, which was why they needed a visa facilitation agreement with the EU. Speaking on behalf of the European Union, Carl Bildt (Swedish Presidency) and Benita Ferrero-Waldner (European Commission) drew up a positive balance sheet for the first eight months of the Eastern Partnership. They consider that considerable progress has been made at both bilateral and multilateral levels. Negotiations for the conclusion of an association agreement (including a free trade zone) are underway with Ukraine. Ms Ferrero-Waldner explained that negotiations with Moldavia are expected to be launched in January 2010. The Commission also presented the Council with mandates for negotiating association agreements with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan but at this stage, none of these three countries is ready to begin talks.
Questioned about the condition of the Belarus student, Tatsyana Shaputska, who was expelled from the State University of Belarus because of having participated at a “civil society forum” meeting in Brussels as part of the Eastern Partnership, Carl Bildt said that the case was “unacceptable” and the EU had already protested about it in Minsk. The Belarus minister replied that the decision to expel the student had been taken by the university. “Universities expel, not states”, he said.
It was agreed that the next ministerial meeting of the EU 27+ 6 would take place under the Belgian Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2010. The next Eastern Partnership summit will take place in the first half of 2011 under the Hungarian Presidency. (H.B./transl.fl)