Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius must bring good results and present future vision, says Minister of Foreign Affairs
In the Eastern Partnership ministerial meeting on July 22, Brussels, Minister of foreign affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius underlined that the Summit in Vilnius must crown the progress of the participants of this programme and provide future guidelines.
“We see the Vilnius Summit as a chance to provide the first very concrete results of the Eastern Partnership and also as a milestone in setting a long term perspective for the Eastern Partnership. The two topics will define the success not only of the Vilnius Summit, but also of the Eastern Partnership policy,” Linkevičius said.
According to the minister, mobilization of all the efforts is necessary to sign the Association and Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine and initial such agreements with Armenia, Georgia and Moldova in the Summit on November 28–29. The EU must prepare the agreements and the partner countries must show they keep their values and criteria.
“The potential of these agreements is huge. They could bring concrete results for people and become instruments to reform, modernize, and get closer to the European Union. However, we would like to see more efforts from the partners if we want to offer them more. Reforms must be permanent and elections must not raise doubts about their progress,” Linkevičius said.
For the first time during the three years, ministers of foreign affairs of all six Eastern partners participated in the Eastern Partnership ministerial meeting.
Linkevičsiu said, it was a good opportunity to start discussions on guidelines for this programme after the Vilnius Summit and for the EU further encouraging the partners that chose the European path to achieve even closer relationship. According to the minister, implementation of the Association Agreements as well as the partners’ efforts to strengthen mutual trust with the EU will mean a lot.
Linkevičius and ministers of Georgia and Moldova also participated in discussion “Heading towards Vilnius - A milestone for the Eastern Partnership” which was held by Lithuanian Presidency and the European Policy Centre, which is one of the main research institutes in Brussels.
Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs congratulated Georgia that concluded negotiations with the EU on the Association and Free Trade Agreement. According to L. Linkevičius, the Vilnius Summit could become a new guideline in expressing the EU openness to the partners and shaping a unified and free Europe.
