'Eastern Partnership' Vilnius Summit 2013

The 3rd biennial 'Eastern Partnership' Summit in Vilnius -capital and the largest city of Lithuania- concluded with little success to show for.

What its all about:

The Eastern Partnership (EaP) offers an institutionalised forum for discussing visa agreements, free trade deals, and strategic partnership agreements between the EU and strategically vital six post-soviets states namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. The region is considered to be of great "strategic importance" due to its natural resources and geopolitics. 'EaP' does not have its own secretariat and is controlled directly by the European Commission.

Core Values:

• Promotion of democratic values, human rights and rule of law.
• principles of market economy, sustainable development and good governance.

History:

• The Eastern Partnership (EaP) was launched in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 Georgian-Russian War to accelerate political association and to deepen economic integration between the EU and these six countries.  
• The EU, in exchange for compliance of member countries to its stated principals, offers them a "Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area" that involves the gradual elimination of tariffs and trade quotas, visa liberalization, and support in various policy fields such as improving energy efficiency. 

Achievements of 2013 summit:

• Georgia and Moldova agreed to sign the association agreements with the EU sometime in 2014 . 
• Ukraine and Armenia rejected an Association Agreement.
• The agreements will include Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (a free trade area covering both goods and services (comprehensive FTA), and involving a high degree of regulatory approximation (deep FTA).
• A Visa Facilitation Agreement between Azerbaijan and the European Union was signed.
• The Re-admission Agreement and the Mobility Partnership will be signed at a later time. 
• The agreement makes it easier and cheaper for citizens of Azerbaijan to acquire short-stay visas allowing them to travel to and freely throughout the EU.
• A framework agreement on Georgia's participation in EU crisis management missions was signed.
• An aviation agreement with Ukraine has been initialled.
• Belarus declares its willingness to start negotiations on a Visa Facilitation Agreement.

Russian Skepticism:
Russia naturally sees this partnership as an attempt to expand the European Union's “sphere of influence” in the quest for oil and consequently has planned to launch its own integration project, the Eurasian Customs Union, comprising Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan to be established in 2015. 

Summits so far:

• Prague Summit (1st): May 2009
• Warsaw Summit (2nd): 2011
• The next Eastern Partnership summit (4th) will be held in Riga, Latvia, in 2015.

More:

• Lithunia holds the current presidency of EU council : Its the upper house of the EU legislature which presidency rotates among the member states of the EU every six months.
• Herman Van Rompuy: President of the European Council 
• José Manuel Barroso: President of the European Commission 
• Martin Schulz: President of the European Parliament