16:51, 07 May 2009 | GMT +5
EU summit ?Eastern Partnership? opens in Prague
PRAGUE. May 7. KAZINFORM The summit of the European Union ?Eastern Partnership? will be held on Thursday in the Czech capital, presiding in the EU; Kazinform refers to ITAR-TASS.

The forum whose participants include representatives from the EU, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, will be staged at Prague?s Congress Centre where it will open at 16.00 mid-European time.
It is planned at the summit to flag off a EU project, called ?Eastern Partnership?. It is to become ?the peak of diplomatic activities? of the Czech Republic presiding in the European Union. The essence of the summit, as Czech premier Mirek Topolanek put it, is to bring cooperation between the European Union and former Soviet republics, participating in the summit, to a qualitatively new level.
A ranking source in Prague told Itar-Tass that ?a possibility is envisaged, in the long-term perspective, for granting Baku, Yerevan, Minsk, Tbilisi, Chisinau and Kiev an associated membership of the EU, creation of a free trade zone and a simplified issue of visas for citizens of the above countries with a subsequent visa-free regime?.
?Eastern Partnership? provides for bigger financial aid to post-Soviet republics. The EU plans to appropriate 600 million euros between 2010 and 2013 for financial programmes in those countries where democratic process is picking up steam.
The European Union is interested in priority expansion of cooperation with the above six countries in the energy sphere. Therefore, the EU plans to discuss a project of building a Nabucco gas pipeline at the meeting; Kazinform cites ITAR-TASS.
See www.itar-tass.com for full version