Eastern relief

The European Union promised the former Soviet republics rapprochement without membership

The European Union has entered the post-Soviet space, which Russia is accustomed to consider the sphere of its geopolitical interests. Yesterday's founding summit of the EU Eastern Partnership program at the Prague Congress Center ended with the adoption of a Joint Declaration of the 27 member states of the European Union and six republics of the former USSR - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. "The Eastern Partnership will be aimed at supporting political and socio-economic reforms in partner countries, facilitating their rapprochement with the European Union," the document says. Russia was not invited to the summit, although now Moscow will have to take into account the emergence of this new factor in its near abroad.

The Eastern Partnership program was approved by the European Union at the initiative of Poland and Sweden at the end of 2008. Among the main areas of partnership are financial and economic assistance (it is planned to allocate 600 million euros for this until 2013), liberalization of trade and customs regimes, and holding regular consultations on security issues. The abolition of the visa regime has been declared a “long-term goal”. Russia was immediately alarmed that all this was being proposed to Eastern European countries at a time when similar measures still remain a stumbling block in negotiations between Russia and the EU on a strategic partnership.

On the eve of yesterday's summit, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed concern that, judging by statements from Brussels, “some people are not averse to presenting the countries invited to participate in the Eastern Partnership with a choice: either you are with Russia or with the European Union " Lavrov called on Brussels and its new partners to form a “common space” and not try to “build dividing lines.”

The head of the International Affairs Committee of the Federation Council, Mikhail Margelov, believes that this is an attempt by the EU to develop a “new policy towards the former Soviet republics”: “It is known that the admission of Ukraine and Georgia to NATO has been postponed, and in connection with this the organization of the Eastern Partnership” “represents an attempt, so to speak, in a roundabout way, by stealth or trick, to include the former republics of the USSR into the zone of its influence.” Moscow draws attention to the fact that at the Prague summit today another topic will be discussed: the Nabucco pipeline project. Its route will pass to Europe from the Caspian basin, bypassing Russia. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said in Prague that the new program will strengthen "Europe's energy security."

European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner tried to reassure Moscow. “I see no reason to doubt,” she said in Prague. “These are not new spheres of influence, this is assistance to countries in modernization.” At the same time, she promised to still visit Belarus, where she was expected first in March and then in April: “But I need to find time in my schedule. Maybe June, July or fall."

The EU member countries decided at the last moment to smooth out the rough edges of the final declaration. The proposal of the presidents of Georgia and Azerbaijan to include in the text a clause on “respect for the territorial integrity” of the participants in the Eastern Partnership was rejected (Tbilisi is concerned about the fate of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Baku is concerned about Nagorno-Karabakh). Instead, the declaration included a more vague provision about the need to follow “the principles and norms of international law.”

This formulation suited the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan. They held a meeting yesterday at the US Embassy in Prague, at which they confirmed their intention to continue the Karabakh settlement process. The next meeting between the two presidents “will take place in early June in St. Petersburg,” American diplomat Matthew Bryza said yesterday.

Yesterday's event in the capital of the Czech Republic (this country is the chairman of the European Union this half-year) could be called a summit with a stretch. The presidents of Belarus and Moldova, Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Voronin, were absent from it: they were represented by leaders of lower rank. First Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Semashko and Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov arrived from Minsk, and Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Andrei Stratan arrived from Chisinau.

Yesterday, on the day of the Prague inauguration of the European Union program, Alexander Lukashenko received Russian Ambassador Alexander Surikov in Minsk. The Belarusian president promised to frankly answer any questions from the diplomat, including those regarding Minsk’s participation in the Eastern Partnership, as well as the meeting of the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine on May 6. “There are no accidents in big politics. The meeting with the Russian ambassador on this day is a clear illustration of the fact that Belarus is balancing between Moscow and Brussels. Minsk is already engaged in the Eastern Partnership and will not refuse the benefits of this program. But he needs to show that cooperation with Moscow remains no less important,” Belarusian independent political scientist Alexander Klaskovsky told Vremya Novostei. According to Belarusian experts, Lukashenko decided not to personally participate in the summit so as not to complicate the start of the dialogue with Brussels and not to provoke irritation in Moscow, which is wary of the Eastern Partnership.

The situation around the Moldovan leader Vladimir Voronin (his presidential term is expiring, and yesterday the parliament nominated him as a candidate for speaker) turned out to be no less delicate. Officially, none of the leaders of the EU member countries spoke out against his arrival. However, Brussels made it clear that they would like to see another Moldovan representative in Prague - for example, the head of government. Voronin's relations with Brussels deteriorated in mid-April - after he accused Romania, a member of the European Union, of involvement in the anti-government pogroms in Chisinau on April 7 and expressed bewilderment at the lack of a clear reaction to this from the EU leadership. In addition, Vladimir Voronin insists on a higher status for his country in relations with Brussels, since it has fulfilled the previous bilateral action plan: “Moldova will seek the signing of an agreement on associate membership in the European Union.”

Olga TOMASHEVSKAYA, Minsk, Petr ISKENDEROV