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The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius attended the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on 23 June, during which the EU Foreign Ministers and Ukraine’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin discussed the situation in Ukraine, as well as the President Petro Poroshenko’s peace plan for Ukraine, which received every EU support.

According to L.Linkevičius, the EU strongly supports the peace plan put forward by P.Poroshenko, the implementation of which provides an opportunity to stop the months-long violence and deaths of people in eastern Ukraine; however, first of all, the following steps have to be supported by Russia.

“Unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine, especially in its eastern regions, is deteriorating, the violence continues; moreover, there is clear evidence that Russia is involved in this process, supplies arms and military equipment, continues its fight in the information war. Ukraine is taking all the necessary steps to establish a peaceful dialogue with Russia. Nevertheless, tanks are still entering Ukraine from this country. Therefore, it is not enough merely to express concerns, we have to discuss how to further strengthen sanctions against Russia,” L.Linkevičius said.

The Council adopted the legal acts empowering the EU to sign those parts of the Association Agreement with Ukraine that have not yet been signed. The agreement will be signed in the margins of the European Council on 26-27 June.

The Council shared the European Commission’s analysis that Ukraine had fulfilled all the benchmarks under the first phase of the Visa Liberalisation Action Plan and decided to launch the assessment of the benchmarks under the second phase.

“The quick progress towards a visa-free regime with the EU is what the Ukrainian people very much hope and expect. The new Ukrainian Government has focused its efforts and in a few months completed all the work that had remained unfinished for several years,” L.Linkevičius said.

The Council also discussed practical aspects of launching a civilian mission under the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy to assist the reform of the civilian security sector, police and the rule of law in Ukraine already this summer.

In the context of the implementation of the EU’s policy of non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Crimea, the Council also decided to prohibit the import into the European Union of goods originating from Crimea with the exception of those having been granted a certificate of origin by the Government of Ukraine. 

The Foreign Ministers discussed the situation in Iraq, in the presence of Nikolay Mladenov, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq. They also discussed the political situation in Syria after the June 3 presidential elections, the tense internal political and complex security situation in Libya, as well as the results of Egypt’s 26-27 May presidential elections.

The Lithuanian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers L.Linkevičius and P.Klimkin held a bilateral meeting to discuss the situation in Ukraine and Lithuania’s support for Kyiv’s process of European integration.