EU unlikely to invite any of post-Soviet neighbors to join the bloc in next 10 years

October 24, 2010 - 16:19 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Poland and Sweden have in a joint strategy paper indicated the European Union is unlikely to invite any of its post-Soviet neighbors to join the bloc in the next 10 years, EUobserver reported.

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt set out their vision for the EU's future relations with neighboring countries in a letter to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and neighborhood commissioner Stefan Fuele.

The letter noted that Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine could one day become EU members, unlike countries in North Africa and the Middle East. "Some [countries bordering the EU] are European and thus enjoy special status in accordance with the treaties, others will remain neighbors of Europe," it said.

But the four-page-letter nowhere said the EU should give the group 'an enlargement perspective.' It instead set out an everything-but-enlargement vision in which the six gradually adopt the EU rulebook, the acquis communautaire, move toward free trade and visa-free travel and take part in more EU projects, including police, military and migration-related schemes.

To this end, it called for a "well-prepared and substantial" summit between EU leaders and the six countries in Budapest on 26 May.

It also recommended that the EU split in two its European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI), a €1.7 billion a year budget line, currently used to fund projects in all 16 of its neighborhood policy countries.

Around €600 million a year would go to the eastern group, on top of a €90 million a year special allocation for the six under the EU's Eastern Partnership policy.

"The development of relations with the two sets of neighbors has followed increasingly differentiated tracks. Given the differences between the two groups of countries, this is a logical development," the letter said. "We should take into consideration dividing the ENPI into two separate financial instruments, one for the east and one for the south, in mid-term perspective."