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The heads of all 27 EU states pledged to strengthen their ties with Kyiv and “help Ukraine in pursuing its European path” following a two-day summit in Versailles, France.
In a joint assertion, the EU leaders additionally stated that “Ukraine belongs to the European household.”
Nevertheless, they rejected the plea by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to rapidly settle for Ukraine into the EU because the warfare with Russia continues. The accession course of usually takes years and even many years, with the candidate nation pressured to fulfill quite a few EU-set standards.
The host of the summit, France’s Emmanuel Macron, stated the bloc wouldn’t make exceptions for Ukraine.
“Might we have now distinctive measures for a rustic that’s at warfare with out respecting the factors [for joining the EU]? The reply is not any,” he stated after the summit completed on Friday.
His feedback echo these made by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who beforehand stated that there was “no such factor as a fast-tracking of accession — that does not exist.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was additionally in opposition to the thought, pointing as an alternative to the affiliation settlement that the EU made with Kyiv in 2017 as a method to deepen ties.
“It is extremely essential that we proceed to pursue the issues we have now determined up to now — that is the course we should observe,” Scholz stated.
European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen struck a extra constructive be aware, saying Ukrainians had been exercising “their proper to decide on their very own future” by beginning the method to affix the EU.
“At this time we have now opened the pathway in the direction of us for Ukraine,” she stated.
EU raises Ukraine navy help to at least one billion euros
Whereas shying away from fast-tracking Ukraine into the bloc, the EU leaders stated they might redouble their navy help, pledging one other €500 million ($550 million) in navy help to the Kyiv authorities. These funds come on high of €500 million earmarked final week — the primary time the EU is shopping for weapons for a non-member nation below assault.
“Russia’s warfare of aggression constitutes a tectonic shift in European historical past,” EU leaders stated in a press release.
In addition they pledged to construct up the bloc’s protection capabilities along with US-led NATO, to cut back the EU’s power dependency on Russia, and to construct up the bloc’s financial base in varied areas, together with uncooked supplies, meals, and digital applied sciences.
Macron: ‘Nothing is taboo’ on sanctions
The EU unveiled one more wave of punitive measures in opposition to Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
French President Macron stated that nothing was “off the desk, nothing is taboo” in the case of sanctions, and that harder steps would possibly observe.
If the Russian president “intensifies the bombing, lays siege to Kyiv and intensifies the scenes of warfare, we all know that we must take large sanctions once more,” Macron informed reporters.
In the meantime, Germany’s Scholz stated that the EU sanctions had already had “dramatic penalties” for the Russian financial system, whereas arguing that stopping Russian oil and gasoline imports was not tenable for a number of EU members. The US, Canada and the UK, all oil producers in their very own proper, have taken comparable steps and Ukraine had urged the EU to observe swimsuit. As a substitute, the bloc is pledging to drastically cut back its reliance on Russian imports over the subsequent few years.
dj/msh (Reuters, dpa, AP, AFP, Interfax)
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