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Brussels calls on EU nations to back 600-million-euro Eastern aid

23 February 2009 16:08 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva-APA. Officials in Brussels on Monday urged European Union governments to back their plans for a 600-million-euro (756-million-dollar) plan designed to boost ties with their former-Soviet neighbours. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU’s external affairs commissioner, said the bloc’s so-called "Eastern Partnership" had become even more necessary in the wake of the August conflict between Georgia and Russia and January’s gas standoff between Russia and Ukraine.
"The Eastern Partnership is a very timely initiative that needs to be implemented," Ferrero-Waldner said on the margins of talks in Brussels between EU foreign ministers, since problems in Eastern Europe "affect us directly."
In early December, the European Commission unveiled plans to spend an additional 350 million euros - on top of the 250 million already allocated - to help promote stability and prosperity in Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Moldova.