Eastern Partnership summit

EU News 142/2015

22/05/2015
Riga

At the occasion of the fourth Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, EU leaders met with the representatives of the EaP partner countries to reconfirm the importance the EU attaches to its Eastern Partnership (EaP).

Summit participants took stock of the achievements made since the Vilnius summit in 2013 and set out a positive agenda for the future.

Differentiation and inclusivity

The summit was the occasion to demonstrate EU's determination to pursue closer, differentiated relations with its independent and sovereign partners.

The EU is strongly engaged with all six partners, whatever their individual level of ambition in terms of relations with the EU. The scope and depth of cooperation are determined by:

- the EU's and partners' ambitions and needs
- the pace of reform

The European aspirations and European choice of the partners concerned are acknowledged, as stated in the Association Agreements.

Leaders also reaffirmed the importance of the reform agenda in the eastern partners and the need to establish strengthened and more transparent institutions, free from corruption.

Discussions focused on multilateral cooperation projects aiming at:

- strengthening institutions and good governance, the EU confirmed its engagement to help partner countries to strengthen institutions and their resilience to external challenge
- enhancing mobility and contacts between people
- developing market opportunities by improving the business environment and legal certainty in Eastern European partners to SMEs and businesses and focusing on the digital economy field
- ensuring energy security and improving the interconnections for energy but also transport

Conflict resolution in the region was also high on the agenda of the summit. All summit participants agreed to pursue all efforts aiming at de-escalation and a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine, and the peaceful settlement of other unresolved conflicts in the region.

Source and additional information:
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/international-summit/2015/05/21-22/

The Eastern Partnership. Graphic (C)EU, 2015 URL

 

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