Ukraine's promise of EU membership remains elusive

2017/11/24 23:11:40

“A promise of EU membership is important, it’s symbolic,” said Ukraine’s Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk on the margins of the biennial summit. “No other country was willing to pay such a high price as we did,” he told Reuters.

 


By Robin Emmott for Reuters, Nov 24, 2017

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU leaders offered Ukraine closer ties on Friday at a summit meant to cement Kyiv’s ties with the West, but they declined to promise that the country could one day join the bloc.

 

As fighting escalated in Ukraine’s industrial east, EU leaders held a summit with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and five other former Soviet republics, part of a tug-of-war with Russia for influence through trade and cooperation.

 

In a summit statement also signed by Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Belarus, EU leaders agreed to “the European aspirations and European choice of the partners” - code for deeper integration without offering membership.

 

Ukraine, which ousted a Russian-backed president in February 2014 in a pro-European uprising, wants the promise of future membership of the EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc, as it seeks to overcome entrenched corruption and economic neglect.

 

“A promise of EU membership is important, it’s symbolic,” said Ukraine’s Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk on the margins of the biennial summit. “No other country was willing to pay such a high price as we did,” he told Reuters.

 

Kyiv, fighting a Russian-backed insurgency in the east, sees a promise of membership as a morale-boosting next step after agreeing a free-trade accord with the bloc and winning visa-free travel to the EU for its citizens.

 

Some EU leaders are sympathetic to Kyiv and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he promised Poroshenko a formal study into how Ukraine might join the EU’s customs union.

 

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukr ... ins-elusive-idUSKBN1DO18R

 

 

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