Toespraak Van Rompuy over verbreden relatie oostelijke buurlanden(en)

Twenty two years ago, the Berlin Wall, the symbol of the "Cold War" fell. The "Iron Curtain" came down. This event not only ended the political division of our continent. It also heralded, economically, the end of the era of state-controlled economies in central and eastern Europe.

And these momentous movements came from below. People in central and eastern Europe shared the desire and the vision to flee from tyranny and to live in a space of freedom and rule of law. They wanted to enjoy the freedom of movement. Salesmen and students, traders and tourists, men and women from East and West: all started to seize opportunities across borders.

Twenty years on, the vision has become reality: twelve Central and Eastern European states have become Members of the European Union, and the enlarged EU has established an Eastern Partnership process. At our first Summit in Prague, in May 2009, the leaders of the EU and its Eastern neighbours agreed to create a new dynamic Partnership to help tackle the political and economic challenges they were jointly confronted with. The objective is to deepen the EU’s relations with its partners by fostering closer political association and deeper economic integration.

Today's Eastern Partership Summit in Warsaw "acknowledged the European aspirations and the European choice of some partners and their commitment to build deep and sustainable democracy".

With these objectives the Eastern Partnership has become -- and I quote from the Statement of this Business Summit -- "an initiative of unquestionable importance to the EU and Eastern Partnership countries business communities".

And this is not a one-way-street: the active participation of you business people in the process is of key importance to reach the objectives on our side. In today’s economic climate, dialogue between the representatives of the business community from right across Europe is more essential than ever. We, as politicians need your active ownership in order to succeed. Nobody knows better than you do which weaknesses have to be overcome in order to create growth and jobs.

That's why I am grateful to the Polish Confederation of Private Employers: Lewiatan, as well as to Business Europe, the Polish Foreign Ministry and the City of Sopot, for organising this Business Summit and for inviting me here today.

That's also why our today's Summit in Warsaw formally welcomed the launch of the first Eastern Partnership Business Forum here today in Sopot. We now hope the business community will take this initiative forward and turn it into a permanent forum for exchanges which can complement those between governments.

Let me come now to the main results of today’s second Eastern Partnership Summit in Warsaw.

To state it in one sentence: We were able to register good progress made over the past two years towards the objectives of closer political association and deeper economic integration. We also laid out the way ahead for the next two years.

There are two issues which we addressed at the Summit which you, as business men and women, will be particularly interested in: economic integration, and mobility.

The first issue is how the EU and its partners are addressing the goal of deeper economic integration with the EU. Our main instrument here is the conclusion of Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas; these are a part of our new contractual relations with our partners, the Association Agreements. These agreements are not just about tariffs. They are about creating the regulatory and institutional framework which allows goods and services to flow more easily between the EU and its partners.

And let's be frank here: It is the setting of the right framework conditions, that businesspeople need and can expect from politicians - no more and no less.

I am therefore glad to say that the Summit acknowledged the progress made in the negotiations of a "Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area" with Ukraine; this may allow for their finalization by the time of the next EU-Ukraine Summit.

We also may be in a position to launch negotiations with Moldova and Georgia before the end of this year.

This bilateral method takes into account the structural economic divergences between the six economies: this needed a differentiated approach.

The second issue of interest to you, is that businesspeople can rightly expect from us politicians to improve the possibilities for citizens of our partner countries to travel to the EU. To be able to do business or to study is an essential to ensure all citizens and businesses benefit from the new economic opportunities we are creating.

Here, the Warsaw Summit also saw a step forward towards the goal of visa liberalization. In view of the different situation, again we are talking about bilateral negotiations. In the medium term, we can look forward to a situation where we will have concluded visa facilitation and readmission agreements with all of our partners.

All these measures are pieces in our common project to build an environment conducive to economic progress.

However, as we all know, the creation of growth and jobs lastly depends on the enterprise and innovation capacity of you, the economic operators in the private sector.

Within the EU, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, SMEs, are the backbone of the economy. Within the European Union, 99 % (23 million) of all enterprises are SMEs. They create more than 80 % of jobs. They are therefore an essential engine for competitiveness, innovation and social inclusion.

Promoting the establishment and the growth of SMEs is thus a particularly important challenge -- within the EU, but even more in our partner countries. I therefore welcome the focus you have given to SME development in your work here today.

The recommendations that have been prepared by this first Eastern Partnership Business Forum will have a strong impact on the economic dialogue in the Eastern Partnership.

From the presentation of the recommendations we have just heard I can conclude that you are immediately right on track.

Let me assure you that the EU will continue to pay great attention to the views of the business community and will look forward to further discussions with you in the future.

Finally, a word on the immediate economic situation, on the short-term. Most issues I have touched upon so far -- deeper economic integration and other measures to promote growth and jobs -- are about the mid-term and the long-term. We have the ideas. But right now, we are in a short-term crisis, related to public debt in the Eurozone, in particular Greece. We will get that right, because of the inter-linkage of the financial sectors within the Eurozone and beyond. Contagion is too dangerous.

Let me just say here briefly that we strengthened all existing mechanisms of control and coordination for the euro-countries to prevent such a situation from arising again. We also put in place funding schemes to shelter Greece and two other weak economies from the pressure of the markets, under a strong conditionality (and with IMF-involvement).

In view of the political constraints -- managing a monetary union with 17 democracies, with 17 governments and parliaments, either creditor or debtor nations -- this has not been easy. Yet we have done what needed to be done. And we know we still need to do more. That is what we are currently working on. This is indispensable for the prospects for economic growth and jobs in the Eurozone, in the European Union, and to some extent in the wider region as well.

You may be assured that we will do what is needed. It 's in our own interest of course but also in yours. We will win this battle. We owe it to Europe and to the Europeans.