Kuleba commented on granting Ukraine the status of a candidate for EU membership ./Channel 24 collage
On June 23, Ukraine officially received the status of a candidate for EU membership. The path of our state to this decision was certainly not easy.
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Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba mentioned the difficulties of the struggle for the candidacy on the air of the unified news telethon. Channel 24 gives details.
Kuleba on how Ukraine was moving towards EU candidacy
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it is very difficult to measure what Ukraine had to endure on its way to the EU, because our path was very long and began far from February 24 of this year. Dmitry Kuleba remembered both Maidans, blood, tears, war and endless hours of negotiations. At the same time, he stressed that the result is still there – the official thanked the authorities and civil society, because all the believers went forward and spoke with one voice, they all achieved this result.
We did it together as a country, this is our result. Four months ago we didn't even have a European perspective. If someone said, “let's immediately become candidates for EU membership,” then the answer would be “you're crazy, it won't happen, there are procedures, everything is complicated, there is no consensus.” I'll tell you that a week agoeverything was shaky, but they pressed on, tightened it up, convinced, and today a new era has begun, which is called very briefly: Ukraine is Europe,” Kuleba said.
Who opposed and how they were convinced
On the way to Ukraine's candidacy, there were those who were skeptical about such a prospect. According to Kuleba, the list of skeptics has been known to everyone for a long time – these are, in particular, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal and Germany. At the same time, the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed that Emmanuel Macron played a very important role in granting us the status of a candidate. Kuleba noted that the decision to grant us the candidacy was made during the French presidency, – according to the Ukrainian diplomat, it was a principled position to do it right now.
Well, a turning point , to be honest, was the visit of four European leadersto Kyiv last week and a conversation with President Volodymyr Zelensky. I can open the “seals” that on Friday of the next day the position of the European Commission was already made public, but on Thursday, at the time of the visit of the leaders of France, Germany, Romania and Italy, the final version of this document was not yet in the European Commission. It was a very fragile, delicate and fragile process, but everything worked out,” the minister revealed the details.
Kuleba added that after the decision in favor of Ukraine, each country deserved a glass of champagne, however, tomorrow everyone will return to the fight. The Foreign Minister noted that nothing will change in the work of his department in the future – the team of diplomats will continue to fight for weapons for Ukraine, new EU sanctions, and financial support.
The European Union begins the process of reformation: what is it about
The Foreign Minister explained that the EU will now launch a process of its own large-scale internal reforms, and the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry will make every effort to ensure that the interests of Ukraine, as a future member, are taken into account as much as possible in those changes and reforms. This, the diplomat assured, will become a big mega-task of a political nature in the future.
At the same time, other Ukrainian ministries will work in parallel on the introduction of European legislation in our state, the government will implement the necessary reforms , the president will control everything and set tasks.
I joked with my colleagues from the European Union that Ukraine would rather make all the reformsthat you expect from her than you reform your own. Because, unlike the European Union, no one in Ukraine has a veto right to ban or stop this or that reform. But there is the political will of the president, the political will of the government, just to implement these changes. The EU has veto power over key decisions, and this will be the main challenge– how to find a balance in order to move from making some decisions by consensus to decisions by the majority. This is the biggest challenge facing European reformers,” Kuleba noted.
The diplomat explained that now there is a question about the functioning of the EU’s bureaucratic machine itself — there are many complaints that it is too heavy and inflexible. In addition, each member state has the right to have the European Commission have its own commissioner – this leads to the ongoing segmentation of functionality to the detriment of efficiency, but only in order to take into account the interests of all.
Therefore, if the EU expands and adds new countries to its composition, it will be necessary to change the principle of the formation of the European Commission. Kuleba noted that the European Union is indeed a wonderful institution, however, the member countries themselves recognize that they need to introduce a number of important reforms in order to function effectively.
Is Europe really tired of Ukraine
By the way, Dmitry Kuleba asked all Ukrainians to forget the term“Europe is tired of Ukraine”. He noted that this is a Russian narrative imposed on us in order to tell us about our inferiority .
What is the fatigue from Ukraine? And here is a solid holiday from Ukraine! Look: the head of the European Council tweets, congratulates, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen presented the conclusion on Ukraine in a yellow-blue suit. There is no fatigue from Ukraine, forget this term altogether, I have always said before, I say now and always say – there has never been any fatigue from Ukraine, there is not and never will be, – the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry assured emotionally.
The diplomat added that the EU today (June 23) essentially demonstrated that the rules of the game on the European continent continue to be determined only by it – not Russia, not China, not anyone else. The European Union is the driving force of the European continent, and therefore today they, on the contrary, felt in themselves this strength, this energy, the ability to make historical decisions.
Please note that in the Western Balkans The summit ended without results, that is, the EU countries did not agree among themselves, and on Ukraine and Moldova, issues of extreme complexity, they reached a consensus. Of course, this gives them confidence in their ability to move Europe forward. And it's very cool that we, our generation, have become part of this process. Today Ukraine has become stronger, the EU has become stronger, but the main thing is that today Europe has become stronger, Kuleba summed up.
