Danylo Lubkivsky: Government expects for strong support for Ukraine's sovereignty to be demonstrated by the participants of the Eastern Partnership Summit

“The Eastern Partnership is a joint initiative of the European Union and the six partner countries. These are different countries with different political aspirations. But we hope that all are united in the desire to act in accordance with European standards and principles of the rule of law, democracy, free trade, solidarity, and respect for fundamental principles of international relations and civilized coexistence," stressed Danylo Lubkivsky.

Danylo Lubkivsky added: "The Government of Ukraine attaches a great importance to the Eastern Partnership Summit, which will have a practical working character and a good indicator of the dialogue".

"Indeed, the Riga Summit is taking place in times of complicated international challenges – under the armed aggression of Russia against Ukraine. That is why the Government of Ukraine expects that the Summit’s participants will reaffirm their strong support for the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity of our state, the inviolability of its borders and the right of the Eastern Partnership participating states to freely choose the direction to develop, to identify and realise their ambitions, their aspirations and plans in relations with the EU," said Danylo Lubkivsky.

According to Danylo Lubkivsky, vital topic to discuss is to strengthen the role of the Eastern Partnership in ensuring stability and security. That is why the Government of Ukraine supports today's announcement by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who speaks about increased importance of the Eastern Partnership under the present circumstances.

"This is a very important initiative that allows no to leave the countries, which became the co-organizers of the Eastern Partnership, alone with the aggressor, one-on-one with the Russian Federation, whose current aggressive policy poses a threat to the international peace, European security and stability, undermines the basis of international law and worldwide order, which is defined by the fundamental international documents of today," emphasized Danylo Lubkivsky.

Ukraine is expecting the Riga Summit to sign the Memorandum of understanding between the EU and Ukraine on providing the third macro-financial assistance program to Ukraine, valued at €2 bln. The final declaration of the Summit is also planned to be approved, as well as a tripartite statement of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, in which the three states, that have signed and begun implementing Association Agreements with the EU, outline their vision of further European integration.

"We need to continue the conversation about the future. And we are talking about providing European perspective to partner countries that will successfully realize the Association Agreements and provided systemic reforms, " said Danylo Lubkivsky, adding that "it is actually an incentive and recognition."

"An important component is the quality of assistance from the European Union for our changes and the implementation of the Association Agreement, said Danylo Lubkivsky.  On Ukraine, the principled position of the Government of Ukraine is unconditional implementation of the Association Agreement with the EU, including the FTA without exceptions, without halts and without procrastination. "

In turn, Ukrainian citizens seems important confirmation of the political will of the EU to introduce visa-free regime after Ukraine completes the second phase of the Action Plan on visa liberalization. On 8 May, the European Commission published the fifth report on Ukraine's progress in implementing the Action Plan to liberalize the EU visa regime. According to the report, Ukraine has made significant progress in the implementation of the criteria of 4 blocks of the Action Plan, namely in such  directions as judicial cooperation in criminal matters, conditions and procedures for issuing IDs, documents’ security, money laundering and terrorist financing, combating drug trafficking, law enforcement cooperation, protection of personal data. Currently, there are still issues to be partially implemented in some areas, because they need to be fully closed by the end of the year.

"We are heading under the schedule, in the normal rhythm and it is important to maintain this rhythm. For this purpose we possess both clear political will of President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Government and constant insistent encouraging of civil society supported by the Government," Danylo Lubkivsky.
He expressed hope that the Ukrainian delegation would bring tangible results from this important forum.