European Parliament President disappointed with pace of EU's Eastern Partnership project implementation

The European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek admits insufficient involvement of partner countries within the Eastern Partnership project. "Not so much work has been done within the Eastern Partnership as supposed by the European Union," Buzek said in Tbilisi yesterday at a joint press conference with the Georgian Parliamentary Speaker David Bakradze.

He said two years ago when the project "Eastern Partnership" was launched, there were great expectations and a positive forecast, however, these forecasts have not quite proved themselves.

"The Eastern Partnership is very important for the European Parliament. We had a very great hope that we will achieve much progress on several issues when we created these relations. However, this forecast has not proved itself. We have achieved much less than expected. Our expectations were not justified especially in the rule of law, freedom of media, independent judiciary growth, improvement of electoral environment, as well as cooperation of authorities and opposition. Dialogue and openness is needed between government and opposition," Buzek said.

He said the European Parliament is also dissatisfied with the processes that occur in Belarus, and makes every effort to avoid spread of these processes to other countries involved in the project.


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