The European Union will continue to work together with the six Eastern Partnership countries, which include Moldova, for concrete results, in particular in the areas of judicial reform and ensuring an enabling environment for civil society and independent media, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn stated in a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the 28 European Union Member States in Luxembourg, IPN reports.
“We should be proud of our achievements in the framework of the Eastern Partnership’s 20 Deliverables for 2020. Together, the six Eastern Partners and the EU, have taken concrete steps towards making our societies stronger, the region’s economies more resilient and better connected through improved transport links and infrastructure,” said the European Commissioner.
High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini said the Eastern Partnership is a key component of the EU’s foreign policy and the Ministerial meeting was an important moment to review not only the different bilateral relations, but also the common work within the Eastern Partnership framework. “We are delivering not only economic benefits, such as increased trade volumes between all six partner countries and the European Union, but also strengthening democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms. We need to keep pressing ahead with implementation if we are to continue to see good results,” stated Federica Mogherini.
The EU’s six Eastern partners are Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The meeting in Luxembourg was held to take stock of the progress made under the 20 Deliverables for 2020. The key achievements over the last year of the EU’s cooperation with the six countries include: the launch of the Eastern Partnership European School; the strengthened support to small and medium sized enterprises and an increase in trade between the partner countries and the EU, and finalization of an indicative TEN-T investment action plan which foresees 5,500 kilometers of road and rail projects by 2020.
