Ahead of the Eastern Partnership Summit, scheduled for the end of June, the European Commission published, on Wednesday 18 March, a Communication entitled ‘Eastern Partnership Policy beyond 2020. Reinforcing Resilience - an Eastern Partnership that delivers for all’.
“We need to look at what the Partnership could look like, what more and better can be done, and what the priorities should be”, explained Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi in a video address.
Building on the achievements of the partnership in the first ten years of its existence (2009-2019), the European Commission is therefore putting forward five objectives for the future in order to have a partnership that “creates, protects, greens, connects and empowers”: (1) resilient, sustainable and integrated economies; (2) accountable institutions, rule of law and security; (3) environmental and climate resilience; (4) resilient digital transformation; (5) resilient, just and inclusive societies.
The Commission proposes, among other things, to further deepen economic integration with and between partner countries, in particular with the three associated countries (Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), and to develop energy and transport interconnections.
The EU also wants a New Youth Pact, which will aim to bridge the gap between the labour market and the education sector, to increase support for the employability and entrepreneurship of young people, to adapt measures, such as the Youth Guarantee, to the labour markets of the partner countries and, finally, to set up a mobility and exchange programme for the Eastern Partnership for young professionals.
Strengthening energy security and nuclear safety and accelerating the transition to sustainable and intelligent mobility are other areas of work.
The Partnership, which will be “flexible and inclusive, enabling countries to address common problems and global challenges in a wide range of areas by promoting regional integration”, will also allow for continued bilateral and differentiated cooperation with each of the partner countries.
The Communication, which is based on a consultation that received some 200 written contributions (see EUROPE 12305/26), now needs to be endorsed by EU Member States and Eastern Partnership countries.
The aim is for the June summit to give a mandate to the Commission to develop a new set of deliverables - beyond the current ‘20 targets for 2020’ - building on the current agenda, “with a view to putting into practice the recommendations set out” in the Commission’s communication. The development of the future post-2020 targets will therefore be a key task for the second half of the year, the Commission Communication states.
See the communication: http://bit.ly/2IY3boU and the structured consultation: http://bit.ly/2QufI7M (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)