In June last year the General Affairs and External Relations Council expressed its wish to define an ambitious new range of policies towards its new neighbours based on shared values such as liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law. The countries involved in this initiative, which is now known as the European neighbourhood policy, are Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria and Tunisia.
The European neighbourhood policy will be implemented by the negotiation of action plans for each of the countries involved. These will be political documents, with clear conditionality on democracy and human rights. They will build on existing agreements with each of the countries, setting out clearly the over-arching strategic policy targets, common objectives, the political and economic benchmarks used to evaluate progress in key areas and a timetable for their achievement which will enable progress to be judged regularly. The Council has requested the Commission to draw up country specific action plans for each of the new neighbouring countries involved on this basis.
During the Irish Presidency of the EU, we will be working closely with the Commission to ensure that a number of action plans will be delivered in our Presidency and that the countries involved will be closely evaluated for compliance with human rights and political commitments. There will be meetings at the highest level with a number of the countries involved. The Deputy can be assured that human rights issues will be central to this dialogue.