The EU High Commissioner for Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, stated in his interview for Radio Liberty that the European Neighborhood Action Plan will be useful for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Trend reports.
It has an objective to bring the three countries closer to the European Union with a mechanism that we have used with countries that finally became members of the European Union. This is the same political technology that was applied to countries that later became EU members, sector by sector, chapter by chapter in a very well-organized fashion that we have tremendous experience in. The important part of it is that it is agreed between the governments of the respective countries and the European Union.
That is, it is not the EU that will be governing your countries, but you will govern yourselves and will receive help from the EU. If the government is good, if it does things properly, it will receive help accordingly, Solana noted.
If the government is not good, in that case the co-operation with the government will diminish, he assured.
The values that we share are the values of democracy and rule of law. And we are establishing an action plan with you that requires governments not only to do well in economy, but also properly guard the democratic values that we and you defend.
The EU is a group of countries with very good and solid relations with the rest of the world and also the countries we have will be closer to the EU from the geographical point of view and from the viewpoint of shared values.
According to Solana, these countries are close to the EU, the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, this is a very important region because it unites two parts of the planet and therefore it may have a very important role.
But we would like those three countries also to work amongst themselves and that is also the focus of the program. We want to work with you as a region, and as a consequence of that the conflicts that exist in the regions will be resolved, otherwise it will be very difficult to construct a region if you have conflict among themselves, he said.
I hope very much that we will be a catalyst for good in the matter of peace and not the opposite, he emphasized.
An Action plan Armenian-EU under the ENP was signed in Brussels on 15 November 2006.
The relevant document was inked by the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vardan Oskanian, and the Minister for Trade and Development of Finland, Paula Lehtomaki.
The Action Plan envisages bring integration considerably above the level of co-operation.