European Greens and eastern partnership

The European Green Party welcomes the initiative of Eastern Partnership proposed by the European Union.

Eastern Partnership outlines a realistic framework for improving the relationship between the EU and several former USSR countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The Greens think that the Eastern Partnership is the most promising of recent initiatives which seek to prevent thecreation of a new division in Europe, improve mutual understanding and trust, efficient sharing of experiences and implement high standards in the most important areas of human activity.

Eastern Partnership doesn’t provide for accession of the member countries to the European Union but it does much to facilitate greater integration since it provides a strong impulse towards rapprochement on the basis of common values and long-term interests.

The economic, cultural and political interaction with Russia as well as the inclusion of Turkey in the context of the Eastern Partnership projects would be a positive stabilising factor of importance to Europe as a whole, and would also promote in the harmonisation of relations among the Black Sea region countries.

The global economic crisis doesn not diminish the urgency of the Eastern Partnership. On the contrary, within the framework of this initiative, new approaches should be developed towards shared use of intellectual, industrial and scientific resources which would lead to solutions for the common problems and raise the development of individual countries and Europe as a whole to a new level.

The Greens are convinced that the economic cooperation within the framework of the Eastern Partnership must be based on the principles of sustainable development. Responding to today’s greatest challenges, we should outline a series of priorities including energy-saving and energy- efficiency-increasing measures, waste-processing and recycling, reduction of pollution and other technological measures focussed on the environment. High environment protection standards can, through combined efforts, be put into practice in the post-Soviet countries which still suffer as result of the lack of political action, a result of their historical background. This would be a major step forward which would greatly benefit the citizens of these countries and the continent as a whole.

A revitalised and harmonious Europe cannot become a reality as long as we still have the current system of visa barriers which severely limit the potential development of cultural and educational exchange, directly preventing the representatives of different nations from meeting each other. The Greens think that facilitating easier contact among people is a key need of modern Europeans and an important component of the Eastern Partnership.

The European political parties and their groupings in the European Parliament can and shall make their contribution to the formation and development of new partnerships and relations with the Eastern European neighbours of the EU. The European Greens have a lot of experience in activities corresponding to the spirit and initiatives of the Eastern Partnership. The main body responsible for such activities for almost 24 years has been the Green East-West Dialogue - a system of cooperation, political assistance, sharing experiences of democratic transformation, sustainable development and environmental protection among kindred political parties, organizations and “third sector” movements as well as other public and political institutions of those countries which are not EU member states.

Having the necessary experience and political will, the European Green Party will actively promote the development of the Eastern Partnership and will endeavour to increase its political relevance.

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