The Eastern Partnership Project, the initiative put forward by Poland and Sweden has been officially launched during an EU summit in Prague today. Its aim is to boost multilateral ties and promote stability in the troubled regions in the East. Six post-Soviet states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine were invited to participate in it. The draft of summit declaration, amended several times, envisages cooperation in the field of energy, the creation of the free trade zone, adjustment of their laws to the European standards as well as cultural and academic exchange.

Speaking shortly after arriving in the Czech capital PM Donald Tusk referred to the project as the success of Polish foreign policy bringing the former Soviet states closer to the European Union.
"The Eastern Partnership project is a reason for Poles to be proud. It also requires the cooperation of the whole European Union", he said.

Addressing parliamentarians earlier today Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that the Eastern Partnership project will be one of the priorities of the Polish presidency in the European Union in 2011.

Experts have pointed that the deepening of the economic and political cooperation between  those countries will depend on those six countries. According to  Amanda Akcakoca of Brussels-based Center for European Policy Poland should make sure there is enthusiasm for the initiative among the current members of the bloc. “There are too many instances in the EU that they come up with the big bang  policies that are all, you know, fireworks and stars and then they just disappear and sort of the EU should not allow this to happen with Eastern Partnership Project. This region is of importance and they need to really symbolically show this” she said in an interview with the Polish Radio correspondent in Brussels.

Several European leaders, including the British and Spanish prime ministers as well as the French president, did not participate in the Prague meeting. Polish diplomats, howerever, stress that today's meeting was only a launching ceremony while details of the initiative had been agreed upon and work on concrete projects should commence soon.

The European Union has allocated 600 million euros to be used for the project of the Eastern Partnership until 2013. (di)