Eastern Partnership summit starts in Prague, Moldova represented only by FM

The summit of the European Union on the Eastern Partnership starts today, May 7, in the Czech capital, the country now holding the rotating presidency of the EU, Info-Prim Neo reports. The forum whose participants include representatives from the EU, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, will open at 17.00, Chisinau time. The essence of the summit, as Czech premier Mirek Topolanek put it, is to bring cooperation between the European Union and former Soviet republics, participating in the summit, to a qualitatively new level. The EU must urgently raise the issue of recent widespread human rights abuse in Moldova, says Amnesty International ahead of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Prague where the EU will forge closer ties with Moldova and five other former Soviet states. In a letter addressed to the Czech Presidency, Amnesty International called on the EU to insist that torture and other ill-treatment cannot be tolerated under any circumstances and that civil society must be able to work free from harassment. Neither the Moldovan president, nor its prime-minister will attend the reunion, as the country will be represented only by foreign ministry Andrei Stratan, what is considered by experts as a signal that Moldova does not attach much enthusiasm to this initiative of the EU. Neither will the Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenko attend the summit. The leaders of France, Britain and Spain will not be present, instead the German chancellor will. Through this project, the EU will allocate 600 million euros from 2010 to 2013 for financial programs in the eastern countries where democratic process is picking up steam.