Last update: 28 05 2010
Foreign Ministers of the Eastern Partnership countries meeting in Budapest
Foreign Ministers of the Eastern Partnership countries gathered in Budapest, Hungary on the 2nd March, to discuss their ideas on how to give more content to the Eastern dimension of the EU’s neighbourhood policy. Péter Balázs, then foreign minister of Hungary invited his colleagues from the six affected countries –Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine- plus the commissioner for enlargement, Stefan Füle and a representative of the Swedish government, as in 2008, it was the northern member state who initiated (together with Poland) to tighten the relations with the EU’s Eastern neighbors.
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Hungary will hold the EU’s rotating presidency in the first half of 2011, and it will be followed by the co-initiator of the Eastern Partnership, by Poland. The year 2011 will be therefore a crucial period for the Eastern Partnership. Then foreign minister Péter Balázs therefore invited all his colleagues of the countries affected, to discuss their goals.
“We have discussed a lot of excellent ideas. I would like to emphasize three focus points. One is to help and assist our eastern neighbors in their democratization process, in shaping market economy, in protecting human rights, and in a way in coming to the end on what we can calla state building process. Second: several areas of economic cooperation. Free trade established between the EU and the individual partner countries. Connecting energy networks, connecting transport networks, roads and railways, and several other economic issues. Third: people to people connection, mobility of people, which brings us to several areas like the facilitation of visa regimes and the management of the borders.” – Péter Balázs told reporters after the discussion.
The meeting also was an extended V4 foreign ministers meeting, so the Hungarian foreign minister announced the establishment of common V4 representations in the world.
“We have already exchanged the catalogues listing the already existing representations and those places where our presence is not secured. I would say, that in days our experts will sit down and discuss the next steps.” – Balázs said. He pointed out the example of Mumbai, Chile and Alma Ata.
Video translation:
- Péter Balázs: Regarding the common representation I can say, that in very little time; let’s say in a few days, our experts will sit down with each other. We have already exchanged the catalogues listing the already existing representations and those places where our presence is not secured. This means we look at those countries where we would like to be present, but can not secure it from our own resources. Among a lot of other examples, we have discussed how we could better represent ourselves in Mumbai –on it’s ancient name Bombay-, as this is a strongly developing economic center. On the sad reason of the earthquake, we have also talked about Santiago de Chile: who is there and on what level. We have also talked about Alma Ata. Each of us have proposed a place where it has a more ample and stable location, where others could join. With this, we can all save costs and amplify our presence in the world.
Petro O. Porosenko, then foreign minister of Ukraine talked about the importance of the deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, which should be put in place between Ukraine and the European Union. Poprshenko believes, the hard work between such an agreement could be a good example for other Eastern Partnership countries.
Video translation:
- Question: I am Márton Ugrósdy, from Kitekintő.hu. Victor Janukovich has recently been inaugurated as president of Ukraine. How does the Eastern Partnership like to cooperate with Ukraine in the future?
- Péter Balázs: The results of the Ukranian presidential elections have already been evaluated by the EU foreign ministers. We have ascertained that the elections have been passed off correctly, no objections have been raised in this regard, so the European Union accepts cordially the decision of the Ukrainian voters. The intent of cooperation from the side of the EU is unbroken, so we go on with the process that we have already started with Ukraine.
