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Republic of Moldova and Georgia initial Association Agreement with EU
The Republic of Moldova and Georgia in the Eastern Partnership Summit of Vilnius, on Friday, have initialled the Association Agreement and, implicitly, the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union.
In the initialling ceremony, Georgia was represented by President Gheorghi Margvelashvili, the Republic of Moldova, by Premier Iurie Leanca, and High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton initialled the document on behalf of the European Union.
Leanca showed, in a brief speech, that the Republic of Moldova was a European state: 'We share the same culture, we belong to the same civilisation.' 'Please allow me to say the same thing in my native tongue, to address my fellow nationals: Moldova, today we secured our course to the European Union,' he added in Romanian, after a few sentences in English.
The Association Agreement represents a concrete modality of collaboration in the relations between the EU and the Eastern Partnership states, concreted in the support for the basic reforms, economic recovery, good governance and a wide liberalisation of the trade with the EU.
The Republic of Moldova and Georgia began the negotiations on the Association Agreement with the European Union in 2010, both states hoping to sign this document in 2014.
Ukraine, which was more advanced in getting closer to the EU, managed to initial this document in 2012, after almost five years of negotiations with the EU, in spite of the tensions connected with the imprisonment of former premier Iulia Timoshenko. However, one week before the Summit of Vilnius, the Government of Kiev announced it had suspended the preparation of the Association Agreement with the European Union, the signing of which was on the Summit agenda.
The Eastern Partnership is a project initiated by Poland and Sweden in 2008, directed to six states in the east of the European Union: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The Eastern Partnership was launched by the European Union and the six partner states on May 7, 2009, within a Summit held in Prague.
The Eastern Partnership functions within the European Neighbourhood Policy, which covers the eastern and the southern neighbourhood of the EU. However, the Eastern Partnership strengthens the bilateral partnership and introduces new mechanisms of regional cooperation, easternpartnership.org website shows.
The bilateral corridor aims at concluding association agreements, developing sectoral cooperation in various areas, facilitating the visa regime. The multilateral dimension is based on a mechanism meant to make more dynamic the cooperation between the EU and all partner states, as well as among the six partner states. Moreover, the Eastern Partnership sets a network of civil society organisations in the EU and in the partner states.