EU offers stronger ties to eastern nations - but cautiously

22/5/2015

By Alex Barker

The EU renewed its vows to strengthen ties with six former Soviet republics on Friday, but did it with circumspection and without offering any new pledges over future membership that would risk rattling Moscow.

During an at-times fraught “Eastern Partnership” summit held in the shadow of war in Ukraine, tensions were laid bare not just over the EU’s eastern ambitions but among neighbours with allegiances torn between Europe and Russia.

The two-day gathering involving 34 countries was convened under a policy initially conceived to bring the six eastern republics closer within the EU’s ambit. Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine are pushing a cautious EU to allow faster integration, while Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus are more orientated towards the Kremlin.

While accepting the summit had provided no big breakthrough, EU officials stressed that the mere fact that more than 20 European leaders gathered in Riga with their eastern counterparts was an important show of solidarity in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

A 13-page declaration from the summit acknowledged the “aspirations and European choice” of certain eastern partners while carefully avoiding direct mention of potential membership of the bloc. It included the sign-off of a €1.8bn loan to Ukraine and qualified promises that Kiev, along with Georgia, was on a path to securing visa-free travel to Europe.

Although the text simply repeated language on European “aspirations” from previous summits, the final accord was seen as a face-saving victory by some pro-enlargement countries who until late this week had feared an even weaker formulation would be used.

Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said the gathering sent a message of “strong commitment” while acknowledging the difficulties in reconciling differing views within the EU.

“Nobody promised the Eastern Partnership will be the automatic way to membership in the EU,” he said. He added that the declaration at least showed “our intentions are the same”.

In statements intended to ensure the summit did not antagonise the Kremlin, both President François Hollande of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany stressed the partnership initiative should not be confused with a EU push to expand its eastern borders.

Ms Merkel said the partnership was “not an instrument of enlarging the EU but an instrument of rapprochement”, Mr Hollande added that the policy must not be turned into “yet another conflict with Russia”.

While the EU spent weeks in difficult talks attempting to agree its position, at the summit itself the main disputes were between the eastern partners. After lengthy debate over the declaration condemning the “illegal annexation of Crimea”, creative drafting allowed Belarus and Armenia to maintain pro-Russia positions.

Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, said the world had denounced the annexation of Crimea and if “one country doesn’t see it, it’s not a problem of the world, it’s a problem of this particular country”.

An argument over a reference to Azerbaijan and Armenia’s conflict over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh more than 20 years ago held up the meeting on Friday morning, forcing Mr Tusk to make a last-ditch call to President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaihan in Baku to find a way through.

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