EU bids to stabilize neighbours amid doubts and conflicts

Prague - The European Union on Thursday launched a bid to boost its own security by making six former Soviet neighbours more stable and democratic at a major summit in Prague. 'It is in the EU's vital interest to have socially, politically and economically stable partners who have good governance and uphold human rights,' outgoing Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who hosted the meeting, told journalists after talks. But doubts remained over the bloc's commitment to the initiative as top EU leaders stayed away from the summit with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, and partner countries pushed without success for concessions on visa-free travel. The idea of the EU's Eastern Partnership is to encourage the six former Soviet states to bring in pro-democracy and free-market reforms in return for major concessions on trade and travel, as a way of protecting the EU's own security. 'If we don't export stability, we have seen that we will import instability,' said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, one of the project's creators and the holder of the EU's rotating presidency from July. EU officials hope that the experience of the partnership will also help the six to work more closely together, even on issues as explosive as the frozen conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. 'If you ask me if this would help solve the problem, I'd say not tomorrow, but the fact that they were here and have an engagement with each other and with us will help,' the EU's top diplomat, Javier Solana, said. Just before the summit opened, the presidents of the two countries agreed in face-to-face talks to the 'basic principles' for future peace negotiations, according to mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. 'We are preparing a breakthrough. We are in a position to identify what could be a breakthrough, but we are not yet through,' said French mediator Bernard Fassier. In a further assertion of the partnership's stabilizing character, Solana rejected as 'not very constructive' Russian accusations that it was meant to build an EU sphere of influence in the former USSR. 'This is not against Russia,' he stressed. But despite the size of the summit, with 33 countries represented, questions remain over EU states' commitment to the partnership. The bloc has already pledged to put 600 million euros (800 million dollars) into key projects such as upgrading the six countries' border management systems, connecting their electricity grids, supporting small businesses and helping them respond to disasters. But the top political leaders of EU heavyweights Britain, France, Italy and Spain all stayed away from the summit, sending deputies, foreign ministers and, in Italy's case, a labour minister. Topolanek angrily rejected suggestions that the absences indicated a lack of interest from major EU member states. But EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, whose organization drew up the plan for the partnership, said that she 'would have wished for more' participants. Tensions also remain over the question of visa-free travel to Europe, which all six Eastern partners have identified as one of their top priorities. Ahead of the summit, EU diplomats said that they were under 'enormous pressure' from the sextet to offer concrete concessions on visa abolition. But the final summit declaration only offered 'gradual steps towards full visa liberalization as a long-term goal for individual partner countries on a case-by-case basis.' EU members even deleted a description of the six countries as 'European' from the final document, out of fears that they could use it to bolster future applications for EU membership. Despite those tensions, summit leaders insisted that the summit was more than a one-day event. 'This relationship is not for a day, not for a month, it is forever,' Solana said.