News

The Initiative of Wider Europe aimed at relations of the European Union with its future neighbours should become not a theoretical speculation, but a practically implemented project. This is the view that State Secretary of the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Evaldas Ignatavičius put forward in his statement at the meeting of Political Directors of the Foreign Ministries of Member States and Candidate Countries of the European Union (EU) and European Correspondents in Vilnius. According to the official, "experience has shown that we need clearly defined long-term guidelines setting priority tasks, final goals and interim objectives". The one-day meeting held in Vilnius on 18 October mainly discussed the Wider Europe Initiative, which is just now being formed and which should define the EU policy towards its neighbours in Eastern Europe – Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia (Kaliningrad Region) over the coming 10-15 years. "Although this project is intended to focus mostly on Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, we think that it is important to involve Russia as an extremely important partner in the Region. Thus this initiative will complement the currently ongoing EU-Russia dialogue and the Northern Dimension Initiative," the State Secretary noted. According to the diplomat, Lithuania consistently aimed at maintaining traditions of cooperation with the Kaliningrad Region and sharing the experience in developing the relations between the EU and Russia. The purpose of the Wider Europe Initiative is to encourage democratic and economic reforms in the future neighbouring countries of the EU, to ensure stability and protection of the EU exterior borders as well as to promote trade and investment, to expand the market for EU goods and to safeguard a stable trade regime. This project aims to push forward structural, administrative and judicial reforms inside the future neighbours of the EU as well as the process of aligning their national laws with the acquis of the EU. Still another of the goals is to strengthen protection of the environment and to promote cooperation on environmental issues. However, as the MFA State Secretary underscored, in order to implement the initiative successfully, it is necessary to ensure availability of adequate financial and human resources. The Wider Europe initiative is especially topical to Lithuania, whose state border will become an exterior border of the EU after the enlargement. "Lithuania just like other current EU candidate countries should be involved in preparation and implementations of this initiative from the very start, because we have practical experience in implementing the reforms, we are well acquainted with the culture of those countries and we have established close contacts with politicians, civil servants and business people of the new neighbours of the EU," the State Secretary Ignatavičius said. At the meeting in Vilnius, issues related to the situation in Indonesia, Iraq and the Middle East were also discussed. Meetings of MFA political directors of EU member states and candidate countries and European correspondents coordinating the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU are held every semester in the capital of one of the candidate countries. In Vilnius, such a meeting of diplomats took place for the first time.