The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson participated at the meeting of the chairmen of foreign affairs and defence committees of national parliaments in Athens, where he said that the Eastern Partnership policy must be tailor-made for each country. Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia must be given an accession perspective, and wishful thinking must be abandoned in relations with Russia in order to strengthen common security.

“The crisis in Ukraine should push us to not mince our words and to abandon wishful thinking in relations with Russia,” Mihkelson said.

He added that “Russia is unfortunately not interested in seeing stable and democratic states strengthening at its borders. We must therefore support the efforts of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to join Europe as best we can, to avoid the aggressive intentions of Russia from materialising. Europe’s future depends on the success of our policy.

If it is really in our interests to establish strategic partnership relations with Russia – which we definitely do not have today – the European Union must eventually stop talking and take action. Talk about any common foreign or energy policy with regard to Russia has no meaning until we can work together to protect our values against an aggressive policy,” Mihkelson said.

Mihkelson was also sceptical about the idea of the French, German and Polish Foreign Ministers to organise, in the near future, an international conference for discussing the issues of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova with the participation of Russia. “How can we imagine a solution that corresponds to the interests of the European Union, if we agree to discuss the future of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine with an aggressor who has already attacked two states and does everything in its power to block their efforts to join Europe,” Mihkelson asked rhetorically.

He added that “Russia must understand that the European Union stands firmly in defence of the countries who wish to be European free democracies.”

The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee Marko Mihkelson and the Chairman of the National Defence Committee Mati Raidma will participate at a conference of the chairmen of foreign affairs and defence committees of EU national parliaments in Athens on Friday and Saturday.