EU Ukraine Summit - Extracts from President Juncker's remarks at the final press conference of EU-Ukraine Summit, 27 April 2015
Kiev, 27 April 2015
Dear President of the Ukrainian Republic,
Dear Donald [Tusk],
It is not my first summit between Ukraine
and the EU. It is the 17th summit, but it is my 2nd. The first
Summit took place in Kyiv on 5 September 1997, under the then Luxembourgish
Presidency of the European Council, when I was Prime Minister of Luxembourg,
and I co-chaired with President Kuchma the first
Summit between the Ukraine and EU. That is just to tell you how old I am. I was
happy to be back again in this beautiful city of Kyiv, which I fell in love
with when I was here for the very first time.
The other two Presidents have already
covered many issues, I will add some elements.
Of course the Ukrainian Government is on a
very ambitious avenue as far as reforms are concerned. These are reforms in
various sectors: they are important for Ukraine, and important for the EU. I
know that they are very demanding; very often I know they are putting painful
efforts on Ukrainian citizens, and I have to applaud the courage of the
Ukrainian people. Because daily living conditions are very difficult. But the
President and the Government — and the EU — are working hard to improve the
living standards of the Ukrainians.
We need determination. We are facing a
long distance. When you are nourishing important ambitions, you need
determination and you need patience. That is what is needed here.
I believe that — as Donald was saying —
Ukrainian citizens want to live in a better Ukraine. I believe that, more and
more, Ukrainians are becoming European in the sense I understand it, the
non-lecturing sense of the word: and so the better the life of Ukrainians will
be.
What is important is implementation of
reforms. What is important is the fight against corruption. Because,
if Ukrainian citizens want to live in a better Ukraine and in the middle of the
European family, they also want to live in a corruption-free country.
This is of huge importance, not only for Ukrainians, but also for Europeans.
I am happy to tell you we have disbursed
the final tranche of €250 million of the outgoing macro-financial assistance.
And we have launched, under the proposal
of the European Commission, a new macro-financial assistance operation, the
third such, with a total amount of €1.8 billion. I instructed Commission
services to frontload the second tranche of the three tranches of the new MFA
in such a way that, during this year, 2015, the 2 first tranches would be
disbursed. This is technical, but this is the general orientation I gave to
Commission services.
I have to reconfirm that we as the
European Commission want — and the same is true for the European Council and
for Donald Tusk — to have the Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine enter into
force on 1 January 2016. This is an important indication, because others want
to postpone the entry into force of this Agreement. We don't think that this
would be a good or wise idea: it has been postponed once, if we keep postponing
and postponing and postponing we will never reach the end. We have insisted on
the need, we have to have this Free Trade Agreement, and we have to have it
enter into force on 1 January 2016.
I announced to the President of the
Republic the intention of the European Commission to provide another €70
million in order to be helpful as far as the Chernobyl shelter is concerned. This
will be done in the next coming days.
European Commission