European Union officials have given Ukraine a pep talk on the urgent need for sweeping reforms and anti-corruption measures, as the country's president pledged it would be ready to apply for membership of the bloc in 2020.
President Petro Poroshenko urged the EU to maintain sanctions on Russia over its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, and to send an EU peacekeeping mission to the region to strengthen an increasingly shaky ceasefire.
The EU leaders responded that such a mission was not feasible. And, while offering warm words of support, they also failed to fulfil Mr Poroshenko’s request for a clear statement that Ukraine could one day join the union.
“We are ambitious in our hopes and belief, and that’s why we declare that in five years we should have . . . created the conditions needed to apply for EU membership,” Mr Poroshenko said at a Ukraine-EU summit in Kiev.
“I call on the European Union . . . to acknowledge that Ukraine, like any other European state which respects and is ready to defend shared values, could in the future become an EU member.”
Euro family
European Commission
president Jean-Claude Juncker responded by describing Ukraine’s 45 million people “part of our European family”, but made clear the huge changes it must make to be considered a candidate for membership.
“Reforms taking place in Ukraine now require lots of bravery from the government and citizens,” Mr Juncker said. “Citizens will get the benefits from reforms, but it is a complicated and painful process.”
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council and a strong ally of Ukraine's pivot to the West, told Mr Poroshenko bluntly that the country had to change itself.
“We can’t do all this hard work for you, for the Ukrainian nation, government and parliament,” said. “The reform of Ukraine is your job – to make Ukraine a more prosperous, more fair and, in short, better country.”
Calling last year’s revolution “a turning point for Ukraine and for Europe”, Mr Tusk said he believed Kiev and the EU were “heading the right way . . . but I also admit that there are many obstacles on this path, and victims too.”
No peacekeeping
Mr Tusk told Mr Poroshenko that his request for an EU peacekeeping mission was a non-starter. Many EU members are uncomfortable with sanctions against Russia, and would not countenance sending troops or police to eastern Ukraine, where fighting has killed more than 6,000 people over the last year.
“Our discussion about a possible peacekeeping mission was very realistic,” the former Polish premier said.
“We know, undoubtedly, that Ukraine wants such a thing, but as for the possibility of sending a military mission – we in Europe are not discussing this option.”
Mr Tusk added, however, that the EU intended to send a civilian “assessment mission” to Kiev to “determine the possibility of further action within the framework of joint security and defence policy”.
Military advisers from the US and UK are training Ukraine's military, and Canada and Poland have pledged to send instructors to help improve defensive capability.
Moscow says such "interference" in Ukraine only inflames the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which are partly controlled by militants who are trained, supplied and sometimes directly reinforced by Russian troops.
