Something pressing distracted Tornike Sharashenidze as he sat down with reporters on the eve of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Summit.

His gaze darted nervously across the Czech Foreign Affairs Ministry parlor, and his hand never strayed far from the mobile phone in his pocket. When it beeped, he sprung up abruptly in his chair, no longer able to mask consternation.

"I am sorry, I just received an SMS from Georgia," he said. "A friend of mine was arrested on espionage charges. … Today, he admitted to spying for Russia."

As program coordinator at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, Sharashenidze was invited to represent his country’s civic sector at a May 5-6 Prague conference accompanying the May 7 EU summit. Even as he presented his position on Georgia’s need for institutional reform, blood flowed on the streets of the capital Tbilisi as citizens protesting against President Mikheil Saakashvili’s policies clashed with authorities.

Faced with Russian hostility and internal conflict over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Saakashvili had "failed to find a balance between preserving democracy and strengthening national security," Sharashenidze said.

"If you search carefully, you can find Russia’s spies everywhere," he added. "If the Georgian government is engaged in witch-hunting to suppress opposition and capitalize on Russia’s spy games, it’s not good. If they are spies, you should catch them, but at the same time you should not create public hysteria."

Political instability proved a unifying factor for Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, the six Eastern Partnership countries participating in a May 7-8 diplomatic marathon aimed at forging cozier ties between the EU and its eastern neighbors.

Touted as the apex of the Czech Republic’s EU presidency, the Eastern Partnership and subsequent Southern Corridor: The New Silk Road summits represented a shift in the EU’s cloudy neighborhood policy, which traditionally favored southern ties over eastward relations.

"Finally, we are separated from the Mediterranean," said Olga Shumylo, director of Ukraine’s International Centre for Policy Studies. "The previous policies were too vague; there were no objectives. It was putting together countries that had nothing in common."

While the summit’s EU organizers used descriptions like "pinnacle" and "historic" to extol the event, a number of no-shows raised questions over whether the entire bloc - not only Eastern member states - were committed to steering neighborhood policy in a new direction.

The highest representatives of three West European countries - French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero - did not attend the summits.

Two Eastern Partnership leaders, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, skipped the event amid EU leaders’ criticism of their questionable human rights records. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko also declined the invite, purportedly because she was unwilling to sit at the same negotiating table as her political rival, President Viktor Yushchenko.

Aside from Sarkozy, whose snub may have been a deliberate retaliation for Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek’s failure to attend a corresponding Mediterranean partnership summit during the preceding French EU presidency, these no-shows should not be interpreted as a lack of commitment, said Petr Kratochvíl, director of Prague’s Institute of International Relations.

With Topolánek out of office as of May 9, EU leaders like Brown simply couldn’t find a suitable Czech leader to communicate with, Kratochvíl said.

He interpreted the absence of Lukashenko and Voronin as positive. While the EU wanted to build closer ties with the countries, it did not necessarily wish to associate with their dictatorial leaders, he said. "In this sense, [Czech Foreign Affairs] Minister Karel Schwarzenberg’s wording, by which he invited Belarus, but not Lukashenko, was successful subtle diplomacy."

While lauding EU’s effort to fortify economic ties and usher democratic stability into Eastern Partnership states, observers questioned the objective of the May 8 Southern Corridor summit. Devoted primarily to addressing energy security by promoting infrastructural links in Central Asia, the South Caucasus and Turkey, it culminated in the signing of a joint pledge to support the construction of the Southern Corridor - a transcontinental energy transport system that would enable all involved countries to wean away from dependence on Russia.

While welcomed by strategic partners Egypt and Turkey, as well as oil-rich Azerbaijan, the declaration was not signed by Turkmenistan, the main potential energy provider in Central Asia. "The Southern Corridor question is very disputable, because it doesn’t include the countries it involves," Kratochvíl said. "The Eastern Partnership can help with energy security, but not in the Southern Corridor, where 95 percent of the cooperating states are merely transit countries."

Eastern Partnership country profiles

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has cultivated close ties with Russia. Some EU states have travel bans on Lukashenko for his poor human rights record. He did not attend the Prague conference. Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called his regime "the last dictatorship in Europe." A dispute with Russia over petroleum in 2006-07 opened a window for the West, and Belarus has since increased dialogue with Europe.

Moldova In April, youth protests reacting to the triumph of communists in parliamentary elections turned violent. President Vladimir Voronin did not attend the Prague summit. Civil society groups note the regime’s "increasingly anti-democratic nature." Once part of Romania, Moldova was annexed by Stalin in 1944 before gaining independence in 1991. Breakaway Russian-speaking Transnistria declared independence in 1990, though no UN member has yet recognized it.

Ukraine Furthest along the path to European integration. Annually at the center of price disputes affecting Europe’s supply of natural gas from Russia. Challenges include corruption, divisions between a pro-Russian east and a pro-EU west. Rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Only Yushchenko attended the Prague meeting.

Azerbaijan A petroleum-rich nation of primary interest to the EU as a potential source of energy other than Russia. Pipelines bringing oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea basin make it a major player in the proposed Nabucco pipeline from Central Asia to Vienna. The primarily Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the southwest declared independence in 1991 but is not recognized internationally. Sub-par human rights record.

Armenia Adversarial relationship with neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan. Dispute over Turkey’s refusal to recognize a 1915 massacre of 500,000 Armenians as genocide. Maintains close security ties with Russia. Left out of plans for the Nabucco pipeline. Recent improving relations with Turkey increase hopes of resolving territorial disputes with Azerbaijan.

Georgia Once called a reformer, President Mikheil Saakashvili’s governing style is now called authoritarian. Fought a brief and disastrous war with Russia in August 2008 and continues to dispute the loss of Russian enclaves South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Recently, anti-government protests have returned and Saakashvili has accused Russia of plotting a coup.

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