President of EU Council considers Eastern Partnership prospect to be area for cooperation

Members of the Eastern Partnership programme play an important role in
the EU's energy security. This is why the EU summit, to be held in
February, and the Eastern Partnership summit, scheduled for May 2011,
are logically interconnected, the President of the European Council
Herman Van Rompuy told the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
UKRINFORM received the text of his speech from the EU Council.

Herman Van Rompuy said that improvement of the EU's authority as a
global player is one of the priority goals. The result mainly depends
on ties with neighbouring countries. This concerns the East, which is
why the EU welcomes the significance of developing the Eastern
Partnership, the Hungarian chairman emphasised.

Rompuy said that the most challenging and promising countries of the
Eastern Partnership are Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Belarus, Moldova
and Ukraine.

In May 2011 Hungary will chair the second summit of the Eastern
Partnership in Budapest. The partnership plays an important role in
energy security and diversification of energy sources.