Brussels, 06/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The first meeting of the Eastern Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, with the EU) informal dialogues took place in Moldova on Tuesday 5 June. These dialogues are intended to enhance political cooperation, streamline the implementation and monitoring of the Partnership and deepen mutual understanding through their informality. They are also a steering tool for effective implementation of the Eastern Partnership roadmap and a platform for sectoral cooperation. The informal dialogues will also provide an additional framework for close interaction with the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.
“We attach great importance to this new format of consultations”, said Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle, noting that heads of states and government agreed at the second Eastern Partnership summit in Warsaw in September that dialogue and cooperation should be enhanced. The dialogues are “not a substitute but an additional element to the existing bilateral and multilateral framework of the Eastern Partnership”, such as cooperation councils, or ministerial meetings and Eastern Partnership summits.
The dialogues will take place every six months in the various partner capitals. (CG/transl.rt)