Representatives of three Eastern Partnership countries - Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova - called for the strengthening of their relations with the EU on Thursday 4 March, during a debate entitled “Building a New Momentum for European integration: the experience of the Balkans and Eastern European associated states”, organised by Andrius Kubilius (EPP, Lithuania).
Ukrainian Ambassador Mykola Tochytskyi said his country’s ambition for deeper political association and economic integration had a “solid foundation”.
For his Moldovan counterpart, Daniela Morari, while the Eastern Partnership's ‘20 deliverables for 2020’ are to be reviewed this year, “more substance and visions for the ‘post-2020 results’ are needed”. The ambassador called for more substance to be included in cooperation topics such as transport, energy, digital, the Green Deal and health. She would also like to deepen cooperation in terms of security, including on hybrid threats, and the strengthening of cooperation beyond the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTA).
For the Georgian Minister Plenipotentiary, Zurab Khamashuridze, the EU should “take courageous creative measures” and “new objectives going beyond the Association Agreements and DCFTA”. For him, “there are geopolitical considerations that cannot be ignored” and that require a response from the EU with a more active engagement in the field of defence and security, the fight against hybrid threats or disinformation.
Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine would eventually like to become members of the EU. But the issue is a sensitive one for the Member States, who are divided on the subject.
For their part, the representatives of the European institutions Katarína Mathernová, Deputy Director General of the Commission’s DG NEAR, and Richard Tibbels, Head of the Eastern Partnership Division of the European External Action Service, stressed the need to make maximum use of existing tools (association agreements and DCFTA).
Ms Mathernová pointed out that these agreements offered a lot to the three countries, and Mr Tibbels that they were “dynamic”. “They are living entities and can develop at the same time as the partners and the acquis of the EU develop”, he added.
He warned against the temptation of an Eastern Partnership in two parts with Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine on the one hand, and Belarus, Armenia and Azerbaijan on the other, and to think in sectoral and functional terms. “It is important not to have a complete separation between the three [former] countries and the three [latter]”, he explained.
The representatives of the Commission and the EEAS also highlighted the importance of the rule of law. “Rule of law issues are essential for us to move forward (...) It is essential that countries redouble their efforts on the rule of law, the judiciary, [the fight against] corruption and oligarchic models”, Tibbels said. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)