Tbilisi hosts 6th Informal Eastern Partnership dialogue meeting

Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU Commissioner for Health and Food Safety and Helga Schmid, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service will engage in exchanges with their counterparts in the Eastern Partnership countries during the sixth Informal Partnership dialogue on 26th of November in Tbilisi.

Hosted by Georgia, the meeting brings together Ministers and high level officials of the six Eastern Partnership countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine - for a high level exchange on foreign affairs as well as on health cooperation.

The Informal Eastern Partnership dialogue meeting will give participants the opportunity to reflect on the progress made within the areas of cooperation agreed in Riga Summit and to share their preliminary views on the results of the reviewed European Neighbourhood Policy published on the 18 November. It will also allow an exchange on latest foreign policy evolutions of common interest, including the security challenges in the region. Commissioners and the respective Health Ministers of the six Eastern Partnership countries will also elaborate on common challenges and responses on health cooperation, including cross-border threats to health.

The informal Eastern Partnership dialogues are held twice a year and hosted in turn by the Eastern Partnership countries. They allow for open, informal exchange of views between the partner countries and the EU high level representatives on foreign policy and sectoral cooperation areas.

source: commonspace.eu with europa.eu

Related articles

Editor's choice
News
Armenian and Azerbaijani officials seek to defuse tension

Armenian and Azerbaijani officials seek to defuse tension

Armenian and Azerbaijani senior officials have moved to reduce tensions that erupted following an outcry in Armenia after a visit by foreign diplomats to Karabakh and surrounding regions, and a subsequent reaction in Azerbaijan. Armenia’s Security Council Secretary Alen Simonyan has said that following the events that took place at Gandzasar Monastery, he spoke by phone with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s Assistant Hikmet Hajiyev. Responding to a question about whether he plans to publicly respond to Hajiyev’s statements regarding Gandzasar, Simonyan said at a press briefing that not all statements necessarily need to receive a public response. “I think everything has been said, and not everything that is said always needs a response. We need to realize whether this will change something or not. I can say something sharp now, respond in some way, we can all feel good for 15 minutes, but by doing so I could harm the negotiations,” Simonyan said. He stressed that the peace process requires a cautious approach. (click image to read more)

Popular

Editor's choice
Interview
Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Today, commonspace.eu starts a new regular weekly series. THURSDAY INTERVIEW, conducted by Lauri Nikulainen, will host  persons who are thinkers, opinion shapers, and implementors in their countries and spheres. We start the series with an interview with Murad Muradov, a leading person in Azerbaijan's think tank community. He is also the first co-chair of the Action Committee for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue. Last September he made history by being the first Azerbaijani civil society activist to visit Armenia after the 44 day war, and the start of the peace process. Speaking about this visit Murad Muradov said: "My experience was largely positive. My negative expectations luckily didn’t play out. The discussions were respectful, the panel format bringing together experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey was particularly valuable during the NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan, and media coverage, while varied in tone, remained largely constructive. Some media outlets though attempted to represent me as more of a government mouthpiece than an independent expert, which was totally misleading.  Overall, I see these initiatives as important steps in rebuilding trust and normalising professional engagement. The fact that soon a larger Azerbaijani civil society visits to Armenia followed, reinforces the sense that this process is moving in the right direction." (click the image to read the interview in full)