President Petro Poroshenko emphasizes that in the course of the discussion of the visa liberalization issue at the Ukraine-EU Summit, the European partners had underscored full implementation by Ukraine of all commitments for the abolition of visas.
“It was clearly emphasized that Ukraine had firmly fulfilled its part of obligations. The last confirmation of that was the decision of November 17, when the EU Council unanimously adopted the decision to declare the political will of the EU and all its members to provide the visa-free regime for Ukraine and finally turned on the “green light” on that path,” Petro Poroshenko said during the joint media statement with President of the European Council Donald Tusk, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker following the Ukraine-EU Summit.
“Abolition of the visa regime with the EU will become the fall of another barrier to our single civilization space. The introduction of the visa-free regime marks further rapprochement between Ukraine and the European Union,” the President noted.
The Head of State emphasized that Ukraine had fulfilled all the obligations by November 24. “Usually, Ukraine faced hard questions regarding the fulfillment of obligations. I can assure that today, during this Summit, Ukraine was not asked a single question. Ukraine has implemented all the undertaken commitments in full,” he added.
“This is the first Summit when questions are addressed not to Ukraine. We, Ukrainian delegation, ask our European partners questions with a request to fulfill the undertaken obligations in time,” Petro Poroshenko said.
According to him, the President of the European Council, President of the European Commission and President of the European Parliament have clearly stated that we had done everything and today, cross-institutional negotiations between the European Parliament and the European Council are being held.
The Head of State noted that he was glad to hear the position of President Juncker that he was an optimist and believed the given process must be completed by the end of the current year. “After this meeting I remain optimistic and once again emphasize that 45 million Ukrainians have conducted huge reforms, implemented all 144 items of the Visa Liberalization Action Plan and received clear assurances that the decision on the provision of the visa-free regime for Ukraine will be adopted right after the settlement of all cross-institutional negotiations,” Petro Poroshenko stressed.
President of the European Council Donald Tusk emphasized that all EU member-states had endorsed visa liberalization regime. “This is a confirmation of the fact that Ukraine has implemented the European standards,” he said. According to him, when the European Parliament and the European Council will agree on the reformation of the visa policy and introduce the visa liberalization regime, the European Parliament will work intensively to speed up this process. Donald Tusk emphasized that those discussions were not related to Ukraine.
“Ukraine has done its job perfectly,” the President of the European Council said emphasizing that current discussion concerned negotiations between the EU members and the European Parliament regarding the internal visa policy.
In his turn, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker confirmed that the European Commission supported the proposal for the European Council and the European Parliament to provide the visa-free regime for Ukraine, which had been elaborated in April 2016.
“Ukraine has fulfilled all the requirements set by us. So now the EU, in its turn, should do its part,” he said.
Jean-Claude Juncker noted: “I remain confident that despite difficulties that may exist between certain states-members of the EU and the European Parliament, we will manage to provide the visa-free regime for Ukraine by the end of the year”.
He also added that the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on the exact mechanism of suspension of the visa-free regime and that did not apply to Ukraine, but to the member states of the EU.
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