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EU-leaders support closer ties with ex-Soviet countries

BRUSSELS. EU leaders revealed on Friday plans to promote the EU's ties with Georgia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states. The new "eastern partnership" will be formally approved by March.

In addition to upgrading political ties, the partnership would also encourage greater integration into the EU economy, easier travel to the bloc, enhanced energy security arrangements and increased financial assistance.

"The eastern partnership should help partner countries to make progress in their reform process by contributing to their stability and their rapprochement with the EU," they said in formal conclusions to a summit.

It will then be up to the Czech Republic, which takes over the European Union's rotating presidency from France in January, to organize a summit in order to formally launch the partnership.

Montenegro made an official request to join European Union

PARIS. Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic formally applied at a meeting in Paris with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and the group's expansion commissioner, Finland's Olli Rehn.

Montenegro is a former Yugoslav republic that split from Serbia in 2006 following a national referendum and is now an independent country of around 680,000 people.

It signed a "Stabilisation and Association Agreement" with the European Union in October 2007, the first stage in a country's quest for membership.

Monday's formal request to join was the next hurdle in the lengthy process of reform and negotiation that candidate countries must undergo before joining the European Union.