Accessibility links

Breaking News
Jose Manuel Barroso, Herman Van Rompuy and Viktor Yanukovych at a meeting in Vilnius.
Jose Manuel Barroso, Herman Van Rompuy and Viktor Yanukovych at a meeting in Vilnius.

Live Blog: Eastern Partnership Summit In Vilnius

The six Eastern Partnership countries are meeting for a Summit in Vilnius. On the eve of the summit, Georgia and Moldova initialed Association Agreements with the European Union, but no other countries are expected to follow suit.

01:12 29.11.2013
European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Yanukovych met late last night, but without apparent agreement. Yanukovych called the EU deal "humiliating" earlier in the week amid massive pro-EU protests in Ukraine.

01:28 29.11.2013
Interesting video appearing on the YouTube channel of the Lithuanian presidency. German Chancellor Angela Merkel approaches Yanukovych and says, "Good to see you here, but we expected more." It is difficult to hear much of the conversation, but Yanukovych seems to say that his country is under a lot of pressure.

08:41 29.11.2013
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, whose country currently holds EU presidency and hosts the EU Eastern Partnership summit, said this morning that Ukraine has had no change of heart.

"The Ukrainian government at least yesterday said that they are not ready yet to go further to integrate with the European Union and not ready to sign an agreement," she said. "This only depends on the government decision of today's Ukrainian leadership."

"I think that the Ukrainian people are disappointed, it is not about Europe to be disappointed. I think that today's Ukrainian leadership chose a way that is going nowhere."

08:55 29.11.2013
09:13 29.11.2013
Brussels reporter for "Wall Street Journal."

09:22 29.11.2013
Van Rompuy speaking now. He commends Georia and Moldova for signing "the most far reaching agreements the EU has ever negotiated with its partners" and makes sure to note that they did so without "undue pressure" -- an apparent reference to Russia.

He did not mention Ukraine.
09:32 29.11.2013
As the Summit begins anew this morning in Vilnius, protests in Ukraine against President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to pull out of signing an EU Association Agreement continue. The protests, nicknamed Euro-Maidan for a central square in Kyiv, brought out tens of thousands of people earlier in the week.

09:35 29.11.2013
EU and Azerbaijan sign agreement on facilitation of visas.
09:42 29.11.2013
Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili speaking.

Says the EU monitoring mission remains the essential guaranteur of Georgian security.
09:50 29.11.2013
Now we can say it officially. With signing ceremonies over, Ukraine does not sign Association Agreement with EU.

Load more

XS
SM
MD
LG