EaP, Some EU FMs Meet in Bratislava Ahead of Riga Summit

Foreign ministers from six Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries, among them Georgia, met their counterparts from Visegrad Group of four Central European states and some other EU members in Bratislava on May 15 to discuss upcoming EaP summit in Riga. 

Visegrad Group, or V4, unites the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini; EU commissioner for neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations Johannes Hahn, as well as Foreign Minister of Sweden Margot Wallström; Foreign Minister of Romania Bogdan Aurescu and Foreign Minister of Latvia Edgars Rinkēvičs, whose country holds EU’s rotating presidency, also participate in the meeting.

“We had a very frank discussion today about what should be deliverables at the Riga summit,” Latvian Foreign Minister, Edgars Rinkēvičs, said after the meeting.

“I believe in Riga we will be able to deliver on very concrete results and very concrete roadmap for the future,” he said.

“First of all we all agree that the Eastern Partnership needs more differentiation,” Rinkēvičs said, adding that there is a “different level of interest” among six Eastern Partnership states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – for cooperation with the European Union.

“I am really very impressed – and it has also been a common message, which we have been passing today and we will be also passing in Riga – on the progress our partners are making. Especially I want to say that the Riga summit should deliver more concrete results and roadmap towards mobility or visa liberalisation and facilitation for different partners,” the Latvian Foreign Minister said.

In an apparent response to recent multiple reports that text of draft declaration of the Riga summit is much weaker than those of previous summits, the Latvian Foreign Minister said that at the Riga summit “we will be reaffirming all the previous Summit decisions, all the bilateral agreements between the EU and partners.”

“So Riga [summit] is not going to be less,” he continued, “Riga is going to be actually the summit where we are going to see the steady development of our relations with Eastern partner nations.”

He also said that there are still “some issues open” and work on the text of the Riga summit declaration is still ongoing.

Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák, who hosted the meeting in Bratislava, and his Latvian counterpart have both stressed in their remarks that the Eastern Partnership “is not directed against anyone.”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich said late last month that EU’s Eastern Partnership initiative is “anti-Russian.”