The 28 EU foreign ministers have ended today, Tuesday 17 December, the preparations for this week’s summit ending the Lithuanian presidency by giving marks to the Balkan countries waiting in line for various degrees of association with the EU. Thus the ministers have given the green light to "imminently" launch accession talks with Serbia, after Belgrade decided, earlier this year, to normalise relations with Kosovo. "Important for entire region," Swedish FM Carl Bildt tweeted.
Due to Greek opposition, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) could not receive a date to start the accession negotiations.
Present at the final press conference, EU Enlargement commissioner Stefan Füle had to put on a brave face, after having been disavowed on Monday by the ministers, who insisted that the signing of an Association Agreement with Ukraine is still possible, in spite of his having posted on Twitter over the weekend that the negotiations were over, because the EU had enough of Ukraine government’s erratic behaviour.
As for the deal announced in Moscow earlier in the day between Russian and Ukrainian presidents Putin and Yanukovych, the Lithuanian foreign minister Linas Linkevičius said :
"We have always been of the strong opinion that the Association Agreement does nor put Kiev in the position to choose between the EU and Russia”, but he continued immediately : "These are words, of course… We’ll see how they are put into reality.
The ministers also prepared this week’s EU summit (19-20 December). Defence on the menu of a summit was an initiative of Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the Council, who, as a former Belgian prime minister, has a direct experience of pooling the military resources. The military forces of the three Benelux countries, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, have always closely cooperated, and Belgium is permanently protecting Luxembourg’s airspace.
The European Council will thus discuss defence topics during its 19-20 December summit. The meeting, the last of the Lithuanian presidency, will have to take critical decisions on finance and on empowering EU institutions to speed initiatives such as “pooling & sharing”, if Europe is to meet its defence and security commitments.
New Europe has consulted the Conclusions of the summit, which will probably receive only minor modifications.
The main message will be that the EU has to be able to provide security for its citizens, but that the gap remains huge between the political rhetoric on cooperation and the speed with which it is being introduced by national administrations.
This summit will also be the first Council since 2008 to be devoted to security and defence. One other main idea will be to entrust a core group of countries with CSDP missions, and also to define a stronger cooperation between the EU and NATO through a “complementary approach”.
Another major theme at the summit will be strengthening Europe's defence industry, but there will also be a strong economic and financial chapter. The Conclusions say already that: “the European Council has focused its discussions on the banking and economic union. This process builds on the EU's institutional framework, in full respect of the integrity of the Single Market while ensuring a level playing-field between EU Member States. It will be open and transparent towards Member States not using the single currency.”
Finally, immigration will be an important topic, the Conclusion being already laid out : "The European Council discussed the report of the Presidency on the work of the Task Force for the Mediterranean in the wake of the recent tragedies off the coast of Lampedusa. The European Council reiterates its determination to reduce the risk of further tragedies of this kind from happening in the future.”
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