With all this talk about Brexit, another key issue has been put on the back burner. EU leaders are set to convene in Riga this week for the eastern partnership summit, where they will meet with officials from the six eastern partners. Latvian foreign affairs minister Edgars Rinkevics tells this magazine that this will be "an opportunity to look at the challenges the EU faces along its eastern borders". Namely, ongoing tensions with Russia and peace in Ukraine hanging by a thread. Yet European neighbourhood policy commissioner Johannes Hahn insists the meeting is "not directed against any third party". And Andrej Plenkovic, chair of parliament’s EU-Ukraine delegation, writes that the signing of association agreements with Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia and a visa waiver for Moldova, "clearly testifies to the deepening ties and closer
cooperation between the EU and its eastern partners."