ArmInfo. Strengthening European Union cooperation with post-Soviet countries participating in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) program and strengthening Europe's role in the Gulf region will be at the focus of the agenda of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg, which will be held today.
"The foreign ministers will propose ideas for the ministerial meeting and the Eastern Partnership summit, for future cooperation projects between the EU and the EaP," a senior EU official said at a briefing on Friday, Interfax reports.
He recalled that a meeting of the EU-EaP at the level of foreign ministers is to be held in November, and a summit meeting in December. Their goal is further rapprochement of the Eastern Partnership countries with the EU, both economically and politically.
Ministers will focus on rebuilding the EaP countries after the COVID-19 pandemic, their resilience and reform on Monday, in Luxembourg. In particular, on solidarity with the Eastern partners in the provision of vaccines.
The EU still considers Belarus to be a participant in the EaP program, along with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, but has limited contacts with the Belarusian authorities to the working level. Therefore, the head of the Belarusian Foreign Ministry will not be at the November meeting, and Alexander Lukashenko will not be at the December summit. The seat of the Belarusian representative will be empty and without a flag.
Following a recent visit by EU head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, to Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the EU's foreign policy project to establish strong institutional relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council has been revitalized. It was formed even before the coronavirus pandemic, but then its implementation stalled. The ministers will discuss the EU's approach to the region, economic interaction with its countries on the EU's global agenda. The EU official told the journalists that these countries themselves "have their own good ideas about cooperation with the EU," Interfax reports.