Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Baltic states want EU to ease Ukraine's path to Brussels

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Baltic states want EU to ease Ukraine's path to Brussels

    New Europe

    Baltic states want EU to ease Ukraine's path to Brussels

    31 January 2010 - Issue : 871

    The European Union should give Ukraine special status and encourage it
    towards membership no matter who wins the country's presidential
    elections 7 February, the foreign ministers of Lithuania and Estonia
    said at a meeting with EU counterparts. The EU is keen to strengthen
    its influence in Ukraine to counter-balance Russia's resurgent
    diplomacy there. In the first round of the presidential elections on
    January 17, Viktor Yanukovich, seen as the pro-Moscow candidate,
    romped to an impressive lead.
    `Ukraine deserves special status in relations to the EU ... It's clear
    that partnership is not enough for Ukraine, but they're not ready for
    membership: what they really need from my point of view is mentoring,'
    said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas. Ukraine is the
    largest member of the EU's so-called Eastern Partnership, a
    cooperation program which also links the EU with Armenia, Azerbaijan,
    Belarus, Georgia and Moldova. Pro-Western groups in Ukraine say that
    the partnership is only the first step towards eventual EU membership,
    a stance which EU states such as Poland and the Baltics echo.
    `Ukraine, like all other European countries, should have a clear
    perspective of EU membership, but it's up to Ukraine how they develop
    and what kind of steps they are ready to take,' Estonian Foreign
    Minister Urmas Paet said. Over the last five years, the pro-Western
    government in Kiev has pushed for closer ties with the EU and NATO,
    despite hostile comments from Russia and from ethnic Russian
    communities in Ukraine. Usackas said that that stance was not likely
    to change even if Yanukovich - seen in the last set of elections in
    2004 as the Kremlin's preferred candidate - came to power. `I don't
    think Yanukovich is anti-European. I think he, like (challenger and
    Prime Minister Yulia) Tymoshenko, is first and foremost
    pro-Ukrainian,' Usackas said.
Working...
X