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The Guardian: EU Eastern Partnership summit will highlight failure of plan to check Russia

21 May 2015 10:31 (UTC +04:00)

“The Kremlin’s intervention in Ukraine, however, combined with even less desire in the EU to see the bloc expand further, has left the Eastern Partnership concept in turmoil, with two of the six countries joining the Kremlin’s Eurasian Economic Union, explicitly designed as a rival to the EU.

Azerbaijan, aware that the EU is interested in its energy supplies anyway, has lost interest in the programme. President Ilham Aliyev will not attend the Riga summit.

Amid internal EU divisions on whether the best response to this is redoubled commitment to integrating eastern neighbours or a scale-back of ambition, the result is a fudge.

In the runup to Riga, EU officials are publicly claiming they are still as committed as ever to the Eastern Partnership. But the rhetoric shows the bloc is now extremely worried about provoking Russia and the voices of EU member states less hawkish on Russia are in the ascendancy.

Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova still keen on EU integration and eventual membership, but here it is the EU itself that is trying to slow things down. Diplomats say they are preparing to “manage expectations” of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, because several EU countries do not want to commit even to the vague prospect of future membership as part of the Riga summit. Wrangling over the wording of the summit’s statement is ongoing. Even visa-free travel, a key carrot for Eastern partnership countries, seems unlikely to be extended to Ukraine and Georgia in Riga”, said the article.