You're reading: No promises, but EU wants to stay friends with its eastern partners

RIGA, LATVIA - European Union leaders will keep their cooperation with Ukraine and five other ex-Soviet republics, but membership looks far off.

That’s the theme of the Eastern Partnership summit under way in Latvia, a former Soviet republic that made the leap to EU and NATO membership. The summit brought together 25 European Union leaders, as well as the European Commission, and representatives of Armenia, Georgia and Moldova, aside from Ukraine.

There is no unity among European leaders in offering EU membership perspectives to the nations — meaning no offers will be forthcoming anytime soon.

Edgars Rinkevics, Latvian foreign minister, says that EU can and wants to assist its eastern partners, but it’s up to the countries’ leadership and societies to push for reforms that meet EU demands. He also added that there are countries with a “different level of ambition” among the partners.

“It doesn’t mean that if you a partner you’d be a member in the future,” Rinkevic said.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said that “some of the partners would be members in the future. It’s a kind of exercise, because the 28 countries have to find a compromise and the six partners as well.”

The EU-Eastern Partners summit declaration will “reconfirm the high importance they attach to the Eastern Partnership” and “reaffirm their shared vision of this strategic and ambitious” project.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said the EU declaration “will acknowledge the aspirations of the partners who want deeper cooperation of EU.

For Ukraine, there’s good news from the summit. However, it still needs to do its homework – as well as its other eastern neighbors – Georgia and Moldova, whose relations with the EU are already deeper than those of Armenia, Belarus, and Azerbaijan.

On the second day of the summit on May 22, Ukraine and EU has signed an agreement on a further macro-financial assistance to the country worth 1.8 billion euros in medium-term loans.

The new bailout package will become the third financial assistance program from the EU to Ukraine, totaling 3.41 billion euros, which represents the largest financial assistance to a third country in such a short time, Valdis Dombrovskis, EU’s vice president says.

Dombrovskis adds that it’s important for EU to assist Ukraine, because the country “is facing difficult economical situation and Russian aggression in the east.”

Another achievement was made by Ukrainian delegation as it managed to add the last-minute amendments to the declaration, making the text “more ambitious,” Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said during a meeting with civil society in Ukrainian embassy in Riga.

However, Poroshenko noted that “the declaration is always a compromise,” and there are still some moments left on which they fail to reach an agreement.

Poroshenko also said he’s not disappointed with a draft text which makes no promises on Ukraine’s EU membership.

Both Armenia and Belarus refused to sign a declaration because of the Crimean text calls it an “illegal annexation.” Poroshenko said the illegal nature of Russia’s annexation is recognized by almost everyone in the world.

Ukraine and Georgia expect the EU to grant their citizens visa-free travel in 2016.

Even though lifting visa restrictions for Ukraine was not on the agenda of the summit, the EU is ready to help, which is “good news,” Latvia’s Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma told the Kyiv Post.

The decision of the 28-countries bloc is not a political one, Straujuma explains, adding that Ukraine could possibly benefit from visa-free travel in 2016 after the “technical procedures” are completed before the end of this year. But the EU insists the two countries first meet requirements on refugees, human trafficking, organized crime and corruption before ending the visa regime.

Straujuma also says that the attitude of EU countries is even “more positive for Ukraine (than to the other eastern partners) now in this question,” because of the situation in the east.

The Eastern Partnership started in 2009 in response to Russia’s war against Georgia. Even though Russian officials claimed that Eastern Partnership with six post-Soviet countries is designed as “anti-Russian” one, EU leaders brush off the statement.

“The partnership is not directed against Russia,” Straujuma, explains, adding that it’s all is about cooperation.

Grybauskaite also adds that despite they won’t outline Russian question specifically in a declaration text, the EU leaders “admit that (Russian) aggression exists.”