The European Union endorsed
a new approach to relations with its Eastern neighbors at the June EU summit. The
leaders of the 27 EU member states and the six Eastern Partnership nations will
tackle the reported slow start for the 2-year-old body. The Eastern Partnership
aims to deepen political and trade ties with six ex-Soviet countries -- Armenia, Azerbaijan,
Belarus, Georgia, Moldova
and Ukraine -- but
money-strapped Europe is struggling to keep
the body funded.
Belarus's participation is suspended because
of political conditions in the country. It might not be represented at the
summit.
The initiative’s agenda is
aimed primarily at bringing the countries closer to the West, provide an
alternative to Moscow’s influence, and was
initially championed by both Poland
and Sweden
on the EU stage. Radio Poland
notes that awareness of the program is still lacking in countries such as Georgia, while in Ukraine, there are complaints that
the EU is lacking drive to help the Eastern Partnership get off the ground. Borys
Tarasyuk, formerly Ukraine’s
foreign minister and current head of the People’s Movement of Ukraine party,
said that "after two years, the Eastern Partnership is still a conceptual
programme which is on paper [only]."
Non-governmental
organisations are report funding as a problem with getting programs under way. The
Eastern Partnership has been billed of one of Poland’s priorities for its EU
Council presidency, which began on Jul 1. It was inaugurated in the Czech capital
of Prague in
May 2009.
The summit was postponed
from May in Hungary,
then EU rotating president, because of a conflict with the G8 summit of leading
economies.