European Council on 19 and 20 March 2009: Draft Agenda

According to the draft agenda, the European Council will deal with the following issues during its session on 19 and 20 March 2009:

• The financial crisis and the measures in its context
  
• The G20 Summit on 2 April 2009
  
• Energy and climate change
  
• The Eastern Partnership
  
• The Union for the Mediterranean
  
• The Lisbon Treaty
  

Sounds quite heavy what our heads of state and government will do in two days.

Eastern Partnership - ENP upgraded

Yesterday, the European Commission announced the launching of the "Eastern Partnership".

This upgraded European Neighbourhood Policy towards Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia - some have called it "new European Economic Area - means an expansion of the Unions involvement with its Eastern neighbours.

And it is a move towards more free trade as Nosemonkey remarks:

For those who dream of a future of global free trade agreements, these moves - with their suggestions of trade partnerships and opening up of markets - are surely a promising sign that the EU is beginning to head in the right direction? Such partnerships could never have been negotiated (arguably imposed) by just one nation acting alone - but the collective bargaining power that the EU’s vast market has brought has given the organisation a genuinely powerful ability to broker such deals that should, in the long term, benefit everybody concerned.

With 600 Million Euros, this initiative is not just a meaningless diplomatic commitment, it looks like a serious effort for an economic enlargement, like a more serious inclusion of those countries who have so far waited at the outskirts of the continent.

I have said before that I am heavily in favour of this move, of the investment in a Europe without dividing lines. I hope that the six countries addressed will be able to live up to the expectations put into them!

The new European Economic Area

The European Union is starting to look eastwards, and what it sees are six countries with European aspirations: Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

And in order to meet these "aspirations", the Commission proposes to create a "new European Economic Area", as EUobserver observes:

The future EEA will require the six states to "take over the entire acquis communautaire [the EU's legal code], including the acceptance of European Court of Justice rulings."

The Eastern Partnership will aim to create visa free travel in the long-term, but to waive the cost of obtaining EU visas more quickly and to set up Common Application Centres in the six countries to help people enter the EU's passport-free Schengen zone."

Additionally, this initiative will lead to a doubling of EU funds for this Eastern neighbourhood of the European Union.

However, this (possible) move of the Union cannot hide that the different countries included into this package have quite different starting positions when it comes to democratic and economic development.

I can only encourage the EU to take these steps, but seeing the slowness of the countries in their internal reforms, their lack of political professionalism, and their unresolved relations with the big neighbour - Russia - makes me kind of reluctant to believe in substantial developments.

Yet: Every little step towards improvement is a good step, especially if it helps the people of our Eastern neighbours to enjoy more and more those freedoms that we EUropeans are already savouring, not least an increased freedom of movement on our common subcontinent.