MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin)
Brussels has offered its eastern neighbors, or Russia's western neighbors, a chance to establish new relations.
The new Eastern Partnership (EaP) program, whose final draft has been distributed to European capitals, is to be adopted (no doubt, it will be adopted) at the forthcoming EU summit in Brussels on December 11-12.
The new "belt of EU friends" at Russia's eastern and southern borders would include Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Belarus.
The new partnership is expressed with a strange pseudo-math formula "27+5(6)," where the sixth member is Belarus, or rather its President Alexander Lukashenko. Brussels is prepared to develop only "conditionally" friendly ties with that country - until Minsk demonstrates true eagerness to accept western democratic values.
Brussels makes no secret of the fact that it is the developments in the Caucasus and Mikheil Saakashvili's actions that fostered the drafting of the program. His unpredictability rendered the European Neighborhood Policy, which the EU has pursued since 2004, archaic. It is going to be replaced with the Eastern Partnership (EaP).
In political terms, the program's emergence indicates that NATO and the EU will coordinate their political lines. After the alliance refused to give Ukraine and Georgia the Membership Action Plan at its latest ministerial meeting, it was necessary to somehow encourage Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili; hence the acceleration of the Eastern Partnership, which Poland and Sweden pushed for most vigorously.
However, the EU decided against a commitment to give Poland, Georgia, Moldova and the others access to Greater Europe. They were only promised Association Agreements; no pledges were made to admit those states to the EU.
In fact, the program points to two simple facts: a) Europe has lost its "transit patience" - it is sick and tired of Kiev's constant machinations with the gas supplied to Europe through Ukraine, which is actually gas larceny, and b) it wishes to finally ensure the diversification of gas supplies.
The first EaP summit has been planned for April. Almost simultaneously, Brussels is going to convene a sort of conference to raise investments to modernize the entire Ukrainian gas pipeline system. In addition, Brussels intends to offer Ukraine and Moldova full membership in the European Energy Community. So far, along with Georgia, they have only observer status.
The European Energy Community was established by the Athens Energy Community Treaty of 2005. It brought together the EU, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and now Kosovo. The treaty regulates the energy (electricity, gas, oil) trade and transit system in the listed countries. Full membership in the European Energy Community will impose strict transit obligations on Ukraine.
Brussels also intends to sign a memorandum of understanding with Azerbaijan and Armenia. After the Caucasian war, Brussels' eagerness to develop relations, as a German diplomat put it, with "serious people in the Caucasus (Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev) instead of revolutionary romantics (Mikheil Saakashvili), has only become stronger." It should be noted that Azerbaijan is considered an alternative gas supply source for Europe.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
