Eastern Partnership is just old policy in new packaging

Today the founding summit for the EU's "Eastern Partnership" with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Molodova, Ukraine and Belarus begins in Prague. The partnership is aimed at promoting democratic and economic reforms in those countries. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung comments: "There is little that's really new about this. Basically it's just a repackaged version of the Neighbourhood Policy Europe launched after the enlargement of 2004. That Russia has criticised the new partnership calling it an attack on the Kremlin's sphere of interests can be ignored. For one thing the EU is also negotiating a new treaty with Moscow to serve as a basis for closer political, economic and scientific-cultural cooperation. And for another Russia has lost influence in its former sphere of control not least because it offered them little apart from arrogant paternalism."

» more information (external link, German)
More from the press review on the subject » EU neighbourhood policy, » Czech Republic, » Ukraine, » Georgian Republic, » Armenia, » Azerbaijan
All available articles from » Horst Bacia

» To the complete press review of Thursday, May 7, 2009