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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.

07:52 29.11.2013
07:58 29.11.2013
Moldovan Prime Minister Lurie Leanca on signing:

This will "surely bring my country one day into the European Union."
08:03 29.11.2013
In September, Armenia -- which had spent years negotiating an Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU -- announced its intention to join the Russian-backed customs union, precluding it from signing a trade pact with the EU.

08:08 29.11.2013
08:17 29.11.2013
Pat Cox, who is the European Union's envoy to Ukraine, said in an interview with "The Irish Times" that he was taken aback by Ukraine's reversal.

"They did not mention the possibility of suspending the signature of the EU association agreement until our final meetings last week," he said. "It's strategically hard to understand, but indicative of how politics are done in Ukraine."
08:43 29.11.2013
Meanwhile, in Kyiv.

09:09 29.11.2013
Rompuy avoids mentioning Ukraine in both speech and tweets.

09:15 29.11.2013
The head of the Wold Taekwondo Federation in South Korea recently awarded a ninth-degree black belt (ninth-dan) to Russian President Vladimir Putin -- placing him one step above Chuck Norris, the well-known actor and martial artist. The meme below plays off Yanukovych's struggle between political and economic unrest at home (mass pro-EU protests are ongoing in Kyiv's Maidan Square) on the one hand, and threats from Moscow over closer EU ties, on the other.

09:29 29.11.2013
From our correspondent in Vilnius, Rikard Jozwiak. A passage from the final Vilnius resolution:

"The participants of the Vilnius summit take note of the decision by the Ukrainian government to suspend temporarily the process of preparations for signature of the association agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free trade area between the EU and Ukraine. They also take note of the unprecedented public support for Ukraine's political association and economic integration with the EU. The EU and Ukraine reiterate their commitment to the signing of this agreement on the basis of determined action and tangible progress in the three areas [judicial reform, electoral reform, selective justice] emphasized at the 2013 EU-Ukraine summit."
09:52 29.11.2013

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