Eastern Partnership
The Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a joint policy initiative which aims to deepen and strengthen relations between the European Union (EU), its Member States and its six Eastern neighbours: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. In this framework, guiding the EU's relations with its neighbours is the EU’s Global Strategy and the revised European Neighbourhood Policy which call on the need to focus on increasing the stabilisation and resilience of the EU's Eastern neighbours.
Within this framework, there is a joint commitment to deliver tangible results for citizens across the region. In support of a more results-oriented approach towards the Eastern Partnership, the European Commission and European External Action Service identified 20 key deliverables for 2020, with milestones to be achieved by the EaP Summit taking place in Brussels in November 2017.
In order to achieve these objectives, cooperation has been based on four key priority areas agreed at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga in 2015:
- Economic development and market opportunities;
- Strengthening institutions and good governance;
- Connectivity, energy efficiency, environment and climate change;
- Mobility and people-to-people contacts.
A structured engagement with a wider range of civil society organisations, furthers gender equality and non-discrimination, as well as clearer and tailor-made strategic communications are also being pursued as across all areas.
This new strategic work-plan aims to guide the work of the EU, its Member States and the six Partner countries until 2020, building on the joint objectives agreed upon since the launch of the Eastern Partnership at the Prague Summit in May 2009.
In a wider context, the EaP also supports delivery on key global policy goals set by the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.
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