The European Parliament adopted by 519 votes to 114
with 47 abstentions, a recommendation to the Council, the
Commission and the EEAS on the Eastern Partnership, in the run-up
to the November 2017 Summit.
As a reminder, the Eastern Partnership is based on a
shared commitment between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia,
Moldova, Ukraine and the European Union to deepen their
relations and to respect international law and fundamental values,
including democracy, the rule of law, human rights, fundamental
freedoms and gender equality, as well as to the social market
economy, sustainable development and good governance.
Parliament made a series of recommendations to the
Council, the Commission and the EEAS.
1) The future of the Eastern
Partnership: the November 2017
Summit should inject new dynamism into the Eastern Partnership as a
long-term policy and ensure that the outcomes of this Summit will
provide the basis for upholding the core values of the European
Union. The Partnership should particularly:
- result in a renewed commitment of partners to the
adoption of reforms related to justice, public administration and
the fight against corruption and organized crime, based on roadmaps
with objectives and clearly defined deadlines;
- strengthen civil society in partner countries, promote
transparency and accountability of public institutions and
encourage electoral reforms;
- ensure that the outcomes of Summit provide a new
impetus including the delivery of tangible results for citizens,
notably in terms of employment, reducing socioeconomic
disparities, transport, connectivity, energy independence, mobility
and education;
- continue efforts to combat unemployment, especially
among young people, and to develop the skills needed for a changing
labour market;
- promote the implementation
of anti-discrimination policies in all sectors of
society; to ensure gender equality in public policies;
- increase mobility between the EU and partner
countries (support Moldova,
Georgia and Ukraine in implementing the visa liberalisation
agreement, open visa dialogues with Armenia, encourage progress by
Azerbaijan in the implementation of Visa Facilitation and
Readmission Agreements (VFA/RA) and finalise negotiations on VFA/RA
with Belarus;
- strengthen cooperation in the areas of education,
research and innovation, including facilitating participation in
programs such as Erasmus +;
- monitor the implementation of free trade agreements in
order to avoid social and environmental dumping, support a genuine
reform of the economic system to phase out monopolies, and an
in-depth reform of the banking and financial sectors to fight
against money laundering and tax evasion;
- support the development of the necessary transport and
connectivity infrastructure, including through an ambitious
investment plan for the TEN-T core network;
- enhance energy independence and efficiency through
specific investments and diversification of energy sources by means
of enhanced cooperation in the priority areas covered by the
Energy Union;
- ensure full respect for international law and
agreements on nuclear safety and environmental
protection;
- commit to sustaining the unity of
action among EU Member States in maintaining
collective pressure on Russia, whose military presence in the
region has nevertheless grown over the past years, in particular
through strengthened targeted restrictive measures;
- reflect, jointly with the partner countries, on the
prospect of an enhanced role for the EU in solving conflicts,
including by launching ambitious fully-fledged Common Security
and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions tasked with enhancing
security and stability;
- fully cooperate with the EU in tackling challenges
such as illegal migration, terrorism, cybercrime, human
trafficking, smuggling and illicit trade.
2) Implementation of the Eastern
Partnership: the objectives should
be, inter alia, to:
- reiterate the principle of
differentiation and emphasise that the partnership aims to
create the necessary conditions for close political association and
economic integration, including participation in EU
programmes;
- acknowledge the European aspirations of Moldova,
Georgia and Ukraine, recalling that
any prospect of accession to the EU requires progress in the
implementation of reforms, notably in the areas of the rule of law,
respect for human rights and good governance;
- ensure that cooperation and support to partners are
subject to strict and controlled conditionality, and that EU
financial assistance is conditional on the development and
implementation of reforms;
- support the multilateral dimension of
the Eastern Partnership through transnational civil society
platforms, cross-border projects such as people-to-people
programmes involving intercultural dialogue and the younger
generation;
- maintain that EU support should
be tailor-made to match the level of shared
ambition regarding cooperation with each partner following the
principles of both ‘more for more’ and ‘less for
less’;
- ask the Commission, the European Investment Bank and
other multilateral financial institutions to work towards the
successful implementation of the Investment Plan for Europe and of
a dedicated support mechanism for Eastern
Partnership countries committed to implementing the association
agreements;
- request the establishment of a trust
fund for Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova and consider holding
a donors’ conference for Ukraine in support of the
country’s humanitarian needs induced by the conflict in the
East and the annexation of Crimea;
- reiterate its strong support for parliamentary
scrutiny of the Eastern Partnership policy.
Lastly, Parliament's willingness to increase its
monitoring of the implementation of international agreements with
the eastern partners and to increase its scrutiny of EU support
provided in this respect.