For the countries of South Caucasus this project perhaps will become a kind of mini-EU integration and when some political analysts said that Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia may integrate into the EU before Turkey and Croatia, not many people believed them. However, this is exactly what may happen in the near future. The list of the countries of the “Eastern Partnership” leads to the idea that these are the very countries, which according to the EU need to be cut off from Russia. No less significant is the role of the oil and gas of Azerbaijan, on which Europe builds hopes, and which is now totally dependent on Russian supplies. This is why one of the main topics of the summit was energy. The truth is though, that the summit was very careful regarding the growing oil prices. During the sessions in Brussels no cardinal solution has been reached over this issue, which, against Europe’s will, does not depend on Russia. The EU countries are only users of this oil and may not have influence in one-sided order the crisis of the price growth of the energy vectors.
As the “Deutsche Weelle” writes, in the summarized documents of the summit participant it was mentioned that “the growth of the oil prices carries a long-term character and a long-term European measures against its possible outcomes is demanded”. In this regard the announcement of one of the EU high-ranking officials, who wished to stay anonymous, is rather interesting. He insisted that issues concerning the oil prices in Europe will become a very important topic of discussion on the summit Russia-EU in Khanty-Mansiysk in 26-27 June.
In such conditions the Caspian oil will indeed gain strategic significance. But the whole question is, whether it will be enough for the growing demand or not. The oil production in the rich Caspian region turned to be below the predictable level and the USA is very much disappointed, said the head of the of US energy information administration Gay Caruso. He said that according to EIA, the growth of the oil price will continue till 2009. One of the reasons of the discrepancy of the actual oil production with the predictable level, according to him, is the delay of implementation of some projects in the region. Another reason is that such price growth was not taken into account during the predictions, writes the magazine The Hill.
True the Polish-Swedish initiative has not only energy, but also political importance. The countries of South Caucasus Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus may become importance “cards” in the geopolitical aspect, and Europe, most probably, is intending to play together with the USA and Russia. There is one more aspect: it is easier to start cooperation on the regional level; such structures are more flexible and bring much more benefit, than the huge EU apparatus or any other organization. It is quite possible that the “Eastern Partnership” will also try to solve the regional conflicts. All this certainly speaks of the advantages of the new initiative, if it really becomes an organization. By the way, the establishment of this kind of regional projects has been practiced in NATO, which brings to certain positive results. If the Mediterranean Alliance of Nicola Sarkozy is also implemented, one may say that united Europe will not become an “interest club”.
Most probably this is going to happen, because during the two-day sessions the leaders of 27 countries did not come to an agreement regarding the Lisbon Agreement, which was rejected by Ireland, and whose ratification is being put off by a number of countries, including the Czech Republic, Poland and Great Britain. The Agreement will be discussed in October. 19 out of 27 countries have already completed the process of ratification of the Lisbon Agreement; however the law anticipates that the approval of all 27 countries is needed.
Implementation of the Lisbon Agreement and the reforms which it presupposes would allow holding new elections in the European Parliament, which are scheduled in June 2009. The new parliament must approve the formation of the new staff of the European Commission according to the new already reformed regulations. Besides, implementation of this agreement will allow the EU to avoid unpleasant problems of freezing the process of expansion. The future candidate to be integrated into the EU is Croatia. Then only it will be the turn for other Balkan countries. As for Turkey; this process, according to the observers, will take no less than some more 10 years.
