KYIV (Parliament Politics Magazine) – On Thursday morning, top political leaders of the European Union were on their way to Kyiv to reaffirm Europe’s support for Ukraine.
On Wednesday, French president, Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, boarded an overnight train to Kyiv.
This is the first for the leaders of the EU’s three major economies. Neither of the leaders visited Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in February, and Scholz and Macron have faced criticism in their home countries for not seeing the war-torn country sooner.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will meet with the trio for talks, with military aid and Ukraine’s EU ambition expected to be top of the agenda.
He believes they, the European Union, were at a point where they needed to give strong political signs to Ukraine and its people in a context where they had been opposing valiantly for several months, Macron said while touring a NATO base in Romania on Wednesday which has a deployment of about 500 French soldiers.
Ukraine’s accession to the EU is supported by all three countries, though to differing degrees.
A European meeting on the 23rd and 24th of June is anticipated to make a decision on whether the war-torn country will be granted EU candidacy status. If successful, the process of becoming a full member state will begin, which might take several years.
Macron, who followed up his Romanian visit with a trip to Moldova, which has also submitted an EU membership application, told reporters in Chișinău that his hope was that they could send a positive message to that request, adding that Moldova should not be separated from Ukraine.
He also reintroduced his proposal for a European political community that both nations could join while the membership process — which can take years — is underway, and that might offer short-term remedies to security and infrastructure challenges, he added.
He also stated that they could and they must define mutual security assurances for European countries that were not members of the EU.
Ukraine’s appeal for more heavy armament to counter Russian advances in the east is expected to be reiterated by Zelenskyy at today’s meeting.
There had been rumours earlier this week that the leaders of the EU would visit Ukraine, but when asked by reporters, Macron refused to confirm the trip.
A photo of the three leaders on the train was published by major German and Italian media sites on Thursday morning, including Italy’s Repubblica and Germany’s ZDF.
