One week after a meeting of their Foreign Ministers (see EUROPE 12504/7), the leaders of the EU Member States and partner countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) will meet on Thursday 18 June to discuss the future of the Eastern Partnership.
While the summit was originally planned to be held physically, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it will be held as a videoconference, prior to a face-to-face summit, which could take place in early 2021.
EU support to partner countries in light of the Covid-19 pandemic will also be one of the topics of the meeting. At the end of March, the Commission announced €840 million in support for the six countries - €140 million in immediate assistance and €700 million to help mitigate the socio-economic impact of the crisis (see EUROPE 12457/12) - and in mid-April, it announced new macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova totalling €1.45 billion (see EUROPE 12472/7).
“The meeting is an important opportunity to underline the EU’s solidarity with partner countries, to support them and to face the challenge of the pandemic together”, summarised a senior European official on 17 June.
Leaders will also take stock of the first ten years of the Eastern Partnership and the ‘20 deliverables for 2020’. This senior official welcomed the progress in relations, in terms of mobility - with visa-free travel for Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova; economic relations - with association agreements and deep and comprehensive free trade areas with these three countries; and reforms. However, progress is still needed in many areas, including the Rule of law.
The leaders’ meeting will also provide an opportunity to discuss the post-2020 Eastern Partnership and to define long-term objectives, in particular the new “targets” that will succeed the 20 targets for 2020. They are expected to be approved at the next in-person Eastern Partnership summit. The Commission’s Communication of 18 March focusing on building resilience (see EUROPE 12449/23), and the EU Council conclusions of 11 May calling for a more strategic, ambitious, effective and flexible partnership (see EUROPE 12485/15) should serve as a basis for discussion. Resilience is therefore likely to be the watchword for the coming years.
The Presidency is not expected to deliver a joint statement or conclusion to conclude the meeting.
Moreover, on the eve of the meeting, it was still not known who the representative from Belarus would be. Usually, at in-person summits, the country is represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Makei. But “it will not be possible to be represented at the ministerial level. We have informed all our participants that the videoconference is reserved for leaders”, said a European source. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)