News

On 25 April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands Frans Timmermans and the Minister for European Affairs of Denmark Nicolai Wammen will be visiting Ukraine.

The visit will include meetings with Ukraine’s highest-ranking officials and opposition representatives. The meetings will focus on Ukraine’s goal to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, the first one that covers such a wide range of areas, including economic and political issues. Ukraine hopes to sign the Agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit on 28 and 29 November in Vilnius.

Even though Ukraine finalised negotiations on the Association Agreement with the European Union in the end of 2011, the country has to live up to the expectations of the EU and achieve more progress in implementing various reforms to be able to sign this historic agreement this year.

“Reform implementation is a complex, long-term process; therefore, unprecedented support and understanding of the partners of the European Union are now more important than ever. We welcome the important steps taken by Kyiv in the implementation of the conclusions of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, which were adopted in December 2012. One of the more significant steps, showing the irreversibility of Ukraine’s pro-European choice, is pardoning Ukraine’s former Minister of Internal Affairs Yuriy Lutsenko,” the Foreign Minister Linkevičius said.

The Lithuanian Foreign Minister also stressed that Ukraine must not lose its momentum for reforms and this year, namely, 2013, would go down in history as one of the most important years for the European Union and Ukraine.

Last week, a group of members of the Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) and opposition representatives visited Kyiv. At their initiative, Ukrainian opposition parties issued a joint statement to support the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union in Vilnius.