Home

V.Landsbergis: Communiqué on Eastern Partnership Omits Security Issue

Lithuanian representative to the European Parliament Vitautas Landsbergis criticizes the communiqué of the European Commission on Eastern partnership, as this document omits  the issue of member-states security. On January 20th EP Сommittee on Foreign Affairs together with authorized General Director of the EC RELEX Directorate-General Eneko Landaburu discussed a new communiqué on Eastern partnership.

According to the member of the EP, the document has been developed thoroughly, but still it has a serious breach.
 
«The issue of security within the sphere of our Eastern neighborhood was omitted. The matter of European security and defense policy was mentioned only once, as well as the issue of general energy security. But there are no references on military actions and threats, although these actions are applied within the region. The kind of situation we have recently observed”, - reported V.Landsbergis.

Lithuanian representative specified that the kind of document didn’t comply with the Commission’s request after the conflict in Georgia.

“Probably, in the given context Georgia is only a geographic area, as we all realize that the war was between two states – our partners. This demands special consideration. Alongside, the individually developed document on the Context of Eastern Partnership that accompanies the Report, sets in its beginning a odd question and suggests that NATO shouldn’t expand anymore. I can’t recall the kind of comments of the Commission on the plans of the organization that guarantees our security. As for us, we have always realized that security around EU guarantees security of the European Union itself. Or is it different today?” – stated V.Landsbergis.

General Director E.Landaburu said that EU is not able to assure military security for its neighbors, that is why the issue of security wasn’t considered in the document. “We don’t possess the kind of authority. This is NATO’s prerogative, so we don’t interfere.”, - said the EC representative.

Translation from DELFI