By Robin Emmott
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The leaders of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine will lobby the European Union at a summit on Wednesday to allow them to begin negotiations to join the bloc but for now they will only win reassurances of support against any possible Russian aggression.
The one-day ‘Eastern Partnership’ summit will also highlight the limited success of the EU’s approach to the six ex-Soviet republics it embraces, all of them in what Russia considers its backyard where it has existential security and other interests.
Of the six, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine are all locked in territorial disputes with Moscow. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will also attend the summit but are not seeking EU membership. Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko, hit by Western sanctions over his human rights record, will stay away.
Under the Eastern Partnership initiative, the EU is offering money, technical assistance and free trade but not membership.
But it has fallen well short, so far, of its stated aim of transforming the six states into thriving market economies based on democracy and the rule of law.
Moscow remains deeply suspicious of EU involvement in the region. Russia’s own relations with the 27-nation bloc have been especially chilly since it seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 after a pro-EU uprising in Kyiv, and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, prompting Western sanctions on Moscow.
‘EUROPEAN ASPIRATIONS’
Excerpts of a draft final summit statement, seen by Reuters, show that the EU will “acknowledge the European aspirations and the European choice of the partners concerned”.
Speaking at NATO headquarters before the summit, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili urged the West also to allow his country into the Atlantic alliance, a goal sought by Ukraine too but not by Moldova, which is neutral.
“Each and every state has their sovereign right to choose their own foreign policy course,” Garibashvili told reporters, in a veiled reference to what the countries say are Russian efforts to stymie their Western orientation.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu told Reuters on Tuesday her country aspires to join the EU and has told Russia of its intention.
Ukraine is currently the main flashpoint between Russia and the West. The United States says Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders, possibly in preparation for an invasion. Moscow says its actions are purely defensive and accuses Kyiv and the West of provocative behaviour.
On Wednesday Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the president of the EU’s executive Commission, speaking separately, both warned Russia of more painful economic sanctions if it violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“… we are ready to take additional, unprecedented measures with serious consequences for Russia,” Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
EU leaders will discuss at a summit on Thursday possible new measures against Russia.
(Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Gareth Jones)
