European Union: Eastern Partnership launch

The Commission has just published an overview of the Eastern Partnership of the European Union: Eastern Parnership (Brussels 5 May 2009, MEMO/09/217), meant to forge ties between the 27 EU member states and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.



The Eastern Partnership can be seen as a relaunch of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), and the press release describes its main points.

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Summit

The Commission’s press release Eastern Partnership Summit to strengthen EU links with Eastern Europe and South Caucasus (Brussels, 5 May 2009, IP/09/700) offers information about the 7 May summit in Prague, where the new cooperation framework is launched, covering political and economic relations, energy security and, mobility, as well as pro-democratic and market oriented reforms.



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Further information

Further information and documents, are available on the web pages Eastern Partnership of the Commission’s Directorate-General External Relations.



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Outside views

Ahto Lobjakas has written a short evaluation for Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty: EU’s Eastern Partnership Strains To Juggle Interests, Values (29 April 2009).



Tomas Valasek of the Centre for European Reform wrote another outside assessment in his blog post Economic crisis and the ‘eastern partnership’ (10 March 2009).





Ralf Grahn

Romania & Moldova: Loyal cooperation?

It is astounding how easily leaders of EU member states forget their basic treaty commitments. I have little sympathy for the unreformed regime in Moldova or its authoritarian policies to stifle political pluralism, stealing the elections long before the observers arrived.

But how can the leadership of Romania promise passports to one million Moldovans without thinking about its obligations to the other EU member states?

New Romanian citizens (from Europe’s poorest country) would automatically become citizens of the European Union.

Has the Romanian government consulted its partners about this sudden influx? Have they agreed? If so, where do we find the documents?

Loyal cooperation

Article 10 TEC

Member States shall take all appropriate measures, whether general or particular, to ensure fulfilment of the obligations arising out of this Treaty or resulting from action taken by the institutions of the Community. They shall facilitate the achievement of the Community's tasks.

They shall abstain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the objectives of this
Treaty.


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Romania is not the first EU member state to act without concern for its partners, but old breaches are no excuse for new ones.

EUobserver reports EU dismayed by Romania mass citizenship plan (17 April 2009).


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In addition to the lack of ’Community spirit’, the Romanian proclamation reveals one of the many weaknesses of a complementary citizenship, with different value in different member states.

Since loyal cooperation seems to be too weak a principle, EU citizenship needs to be reformed into an independent and unitary status, defining who is an EU citizen as well as the rights and obligations.


Ralf Grahn