GUAM may serve as platform for joint projects with EU

By AzerNews

After the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius the GUAM format may serve as a relevant platform for implementing joint European Union-GUAM projects, foreign ministers of GUAM member-states - Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova said on November 29.

In particular, they underlined prospects for cooperation in the spheres of energy, transport, trade, tourism, education, combating international crime, the communique of foreign ministers of GUAM member-states adopted within the summit reports.

The foreign ministers once again said that GUAM is an open organization that invites EU and other partners, who share the principles of the organization.

During the Eastern Partnership Summit, which held in Vilnius on November 28-29, the EU initialed the Association Agreement with Georgia and Moldova and signed a visa facilitation agreement with Azerbaijan.

Ukraine and the EU adopted a joint declaration , according to which the sides took into account each other's positions, and still committed to the obligation to sign the Association Agreement

GUAM was established by the post-Soviet countries in 1997 during the EU presidential summit at Strasbourg. In 1999, Uzbekistan joined the organization and left four years later. A decision was made to rename GUAM as an international organization. It was called the 'Organization for Democracy and Economic Development - GUAM', at the body's first summit in Kiev in 2006.