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Although the fate of the EU's Reform Treaty was not officially discussed at the bloc's extraordinary summit on Georgia on 1 September, it proved to be a highly topical issue, with various top-level European politicians highlighting the importance of its entry into force if the EU is to become a more powerful global player.

Political analysts have underlined that the EU was lucky to have a country as big as France at its helm during the Georgia crisis as this tempered the lack of real EU leadership.  "The EU was lucky France held the EU Presidency, because Russia agreed to engage with Mr. Sarkozy on the ceasefire. But they may not have engaged with the EU if a smaller country such as the Czech Republic were EU president, especially with its difficult bilateral relationship with Moscow as a result of its decision to host US missile defence," said Antonio Missiroli, the director of the European Policy Centre, quoted in The Irish Times. 

Even the Polish President, who in the recent past called the Lisbon Treaty "pointless" and said he would not sign it (EurActiv 01/07/08), spoke a very different language after the summit.  Asked by EurActiv if he was now more in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, Kaczynski conceded that indeed, several EU leaders had mentioned informally that the Lisbon Treaty would have given the EU better instruments to deal with challenges such as the current Georgia crisis. He then added that Ireland should hold a second referendum. 

The final shape of an EU security mission to Georgia and broader EU-Russia relations will top the agenda of an EU foreign ministers' meeting in France this weekend. The possibility of relaxing sanctions against Belarus and prospects for a new Ukraine treaty will also come up for debate.

It remains uncertain if the unit will be composed of EU-badged policemen or soldiers however, if it will stand alongside OSCE monitors or be part of an OSCE-led team and if it will have access to the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The Avignon meeting will also examine if the EU should relax sanctions against Belarus, which last month released three political prisoners and promises to hold its free and fairest-ever parliamentary elections on 28 September.

EU leaders on Monday (1 September) agreed to postpone talks on a new EU-Russia partnership until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia following the insistence of a bloc of member states.

The talks on a new treaty defining the EU relations with Russia were scheduled to take place later this month, but pressed by the demand of several member states, it was decided this would be tied to Russian withdrawal from Georgia. The postponement modifies a previously circulated draft version of the summit's conclusion that took a softer stance on the issue of talks.

Poland – one of the countries pushing for the suspension – hailed the final declaration as a victory and insisted its position was not isolated. "We were not alone, we were acting within a group," including also the Czech Republic, the Baltic States - Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, the UK and Sweden, Polish President Lech Kaczynski told journalists.

EU foreign ministers on Wednesday (13 August) agreed to send peacekeepers to help supervise the fragile Russia-Georgia ceasefire, putting off discussions on potential diplomatic sanctions against Russia until next month. "The European Union must be prepared to commit itself, including on the ground," the EU joint statement said, asking EU top diplomat Javier Solana to draft more detailed proposals for the ministers' next meeting on 5 September.

"The European Union will want to consider how it proceeds with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement," UK foreign minister, David Miliband, said. "The sight of Russian tanks in Gori, Russian tanks in Senaki, a Russian blockade of Poti, the Georgian port are a chilling reminder of times that I think we had hoped had gone by." The Polish and Lithuanian ministers echoed the British position. "Of course some consequences must appear of the aggression," Lithuanian foreign minister, Petras Vaitiekunas, said. "There was clearly disproportionate force used by the Russians," Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski added.

By keeping Ukraine's EU accession prospects alive, European Union leaders yesterday (9 September) steered clear of creating a "damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don't" situationby balancing a desire to encourage the country's pro-Western leadership with concerns not to further radicalise Moscow in the wake of the Georgia crisis.

The EU appeared to be divided at the summit, with France, Germany and Italy advocating a cautious approach to Moscow, while Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Baltic states expressed their wish to develop stronger ties with the EU's eastern neighbourhood after the Georgia crisis. 

Outlining some of the main priories of the incoming Czech EU Presidency, Milena Vicenova, the Czech ambassador to the bloc in Brussels, said her country would seek to hold an "informal summit" with the US in Prague, involving the leaders of the bloc's 27 member states in a departure from the usual European 'troika' format of delegations.

Meanwhile, the Czech ambassador also said her country would follow up on proposals tabled by the European Commission earlier this month to develop an Eastern Partnership to improve ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and particularly Ukraine.

The Czech ambassador also expressed her hope that the European elections, which are scheduled to take place on 4-7 June 2009, would be a success. "We will do everything in our power to avoid low turnout our voter apathy, and we hope to keep a positive spirit."

The Justice and Home Affairs Policy Universe: Some Directions for Further Research 1 – 7 Author: Karen E. Smith DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503718 Editorial The External Dimension of Justice and Home Affairs: A Different Security Agenda for the EU? 9 – 23 Authors: Sarah Wolff;  Nicole Wichmann; Gregory Mounier DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503817 Institutional Features of the External Dimension of JHA—The Input Dimension The External Dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Hijacker or Hostage of Cross-pillarization? 25 – 44 Author: Patryk Pawlak DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503825 Civilian Crisis Management and the External Dimension of JHA: Inceptive, Functional and Institutional Similarities 45 – 64 Author: Gregory Mounier DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503874 Modes of Interaction with the Neighbours — The Output Dimension (1) Deconstructing the EU's Routes of Influence in Justice and Home Affairs in the Western Balkans 65 – 82 Author: Florian Trauner DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503908 The External Governance of EU Internal Security 83 – 102 Authors: Sandra Lavenex; Nicole Wichmann DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503932 Opportunities and Limits of the JHA External Dimension—The Output Dimension (2) The Externalization of JHA Policies in Georgia: Partner or Hotbed of Threats? 103 – 118 Author: Lili Di Puppo DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503965 When the EU is the 'Norm-taker': The Passenger Name Records Agreement and the EU's Internalization of US Border Security Norms 119 – 136 Author: Javier Argomaniz DOI: 10.1080/07036330802503981 The Mediterranean Dimension of EU Counter-terrorism 137 – 156 Author: Sarah Wolff DOI: 10.1080/07036330802504013

EU policies applied to the Western Balkans - such as a regional free trade area - are inspiring the "Eastern Partnership" with Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and "hopefully" Belarus, participants at a conference organized Wednesday (17 September) by the German Konrad Adenauer think-tank learned.

Initially a Polish-Swedish proposal endorsed in June by all member states, the Eastern Partnership is designed to deepen ties with the "European neighbours" to the east, balancing the 'Mediterranean Union' with the southern "neighbours of Europe," as Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski put it. The Georgian conflict sped up the process of drafting the eastern policy by the European Commission, with president Jose Manuel Barroso scheduled to sketch out the main features already at the EU summit on 15 October.

he European Commission is working on an 'Eastern Partnership' with Ukraine, Georgia and other countries lying on its eastern borders, diplomats and EU officials have announced.

Ukraine wants an 'Eastern European Partnership', modelled on the defunct Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, as a precursor to future EU membership, the country's ambassador in Brussels told journalists yesterday (6 November)

According to Veselovski, the partnership's added value compared to the EU's current neighbourhood policy would reside in a joint effort to change perceptions about the region, which he said is too often portrayed as a conflict-ridden area unfit for EU integration. 

The European Parliament is preparing a report that argues in favour of significantly slowing down the process of further enlargement of the EU, warning that hurried expansion will lead to a fragmented Union. Prepared for the foreign affairs committee by German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, the draft report says: "Further enlargement without adequate consolidation could lead to a Union of multiple configurations, with core countries moving towards closer integration and others lying at its margins."

Enlargement strategy should "be flanked by a more diversified range of external contractual frameworks." Countries could then graduate to more integrated agreements if they fulfilled certain conditions.

Despite the proposal for a stronger political relationship with the EU, the report's emphasis on its own ability to absorb new member states represents a blow to countries such as Ukraine and Georgia which have been strongly lobbying Brussels for hints that they can eventually join the club.

The EU wants to "deepen" its ties with four of its neighbours - Ukraine, Moldova, Morocco and Israel - external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in Brussels on Thursday (3 April).

The ENP covers Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Ukraine, as well as the Palestinian Authority. It was designed with the aim of offering EU neighbours closer – or privileged – cooperation with the bloc, but it does not foresee eventual EU membership, a fact repeated regularly by Brussels. But referring to Ukraine, Ms Ferrero-Waldner noted: "For the future, nothing is ruled out and nothing is ruled in, the [EU] door is neither open nor closed."

EU divisions were apparent on the eve of the NATO summit in Bucharest on 2-4 April with several heavyweights, including France, opposed to the planned Eastern expansion of the military alliance. EurActiv Romania contributed to this report from Bucharest.

Several EU heavyweights (Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium) are opposed to such a project.  In the meantime, several representatives of the new EU members expressed their support for opening the NATO door to Kiev and Tbilisi.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that President Nicolas Sarkozy would oppose the idea at the Summit in Bucharest. "France is not green-lighting Ukraine and Georgia's accession. Paris has a different opinion to that of the US on the matter", Fillon told France Inter Radio, quoted by Rompres. Romanian President Traian Basescu, who is hosting the largest-ever summit of NATO's 26 member states, stated that including Ukraine and Georgia in the MAP is "a logical step from the Romanian point of view". 

Poland and Sweden are to unveil joint proposals for a new eastern Europe policy at an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday (26 May), in a mini-version of France's "Mediterranean Union." The "Eastern Partnership" envisages a multinational forum between the EU-27 and neighbouring states Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Polish press agency PAP reports.

The forum would aim to negotiate visa-free travel deals, free trade zones for services and agricultural products and strategic partnership agreements with the five countries. It would also launch smaller, bilateral projects on student exchange, environmental protection and energy supply, but would avoid the controversial topic of EU membership perspectives.

Unlike the grander Mediterranean club, the eastern set-up would not have its own secretariat but would be run by the European Commission and financed from the 2007 to 2013 European neighbourhood policy budget. A commission official would be appointed as its "special coordinator."

A new proposal by Sweden and Poland to strengthen the EU's ties with its eastern neighbours to be officially presented today is not meant to undermine but rather enhance existing EU policies, according to a draft paper obtained by EurActiv.

Mirroring the countries already covered by the ENP scheme, the new initiative aims to improve ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and particularly Ukraine. The draft paper suggests that a new Enhanced Partnership Agreement (EPA) currently being negotiated with Ukraine "could serve as a reference" for other countries. 

The new initiative is seen as a complement to the French-driven 'Union for the Mediterranean' proposal, but unlike the original French vision, the Polish-Swedish proposal clearly states that it would be embedded into existing EU structures and does not seek additional funding but is financed solely out of the ENP budget.

The French EU presidency is expected to endorse the Russia-Georgia ceasefire, offer humanitarian aid and urge EU unity in a statement after an EU foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday (13 August), with Paris keen to avoid controversy on who to blame for the crisis. Preparatory discussions by EU diplomats on Tuesday saw a group of former communist states speak in "sharp language" about Russia, but the tone was "less radical than they used for their domestic press," one diplomat who attended the debates told EUobserver.

Brussels' new neighbourhood policy will try and get ex-Soviet states to catch up with Mediterranean rim countries in terms of pro-EU reforms - but the policy is not up to the job, one of the EU's biggest neighbours, Ukraine, says. The new-look "European Neighbourhood Policy" (ENP) will see the EU boost its role in eastern issues such as conflict resolution in Georgia and Moldova by getting involved for the first time in multilateral foreign ministers' meetings of nearby post-Soviet states.