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BRUSSELS -- The European Union agreed to plans Friday to strengthen ties with Ukraine, Georgia and four other former Soviet republics in a move likely to irritate Russia.
EU leaders said the bloc should provide aid worth 600 million euros ($813 million) until 2013 to the six, which also include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova and Belarus, and seek better cooperation with them on energy supplies.
"We have been able to start the Eastern Partnership. ... That is a great victory not just for the countries themselves but for EU itself," said Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.
Under the Eastern Partnership program for nonmember states, the EU is to negotiate new association agreements -- accords setting terms for cooperation with nonmember states -- in reward for democratic and free-market reforms.
EU leaders are to hold summits every two years with their counterparts from the six countries. The first will be in the Czech Republic in May.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Saturday that the program was "an important step forward [to create] stability and in the end prosperity for our region."
But other leaders were less enthusiastic. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria said "significant resources are required" for meeting the EU's criteria to join the program, without elaborating.
(Reuters, AP)
EU Backs Russia's Neighbors
23 March 2009
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