Victor Yushchenko met with participants of an EU-Ukraine Troika meeting: Ursula Plassnik, Austria’s Foreign Minister, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, Erkki Tuomioja, Finland’s Foreign Minister, Michael Miis, Austrian Ambassador to Ukraine, Laura Reinila, Finnish Ambassador to Ukraine, and Ambassador Ian Boag, Head of the Delegation of the European Commission to Ukraine. Borys Tarasyuk, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Roman Shpek, Ukraine’s Representative to the EU, Dmytro Markov, Head of the EU Department of Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry, and Kostyantyn Tymoshenko, Head of the Secretariat Foreign Policy Department, attended the meeting, the President press office reported.
The Chief of State thanked the EU representatives for supporting Ukraine’s ambition to join the European Union.
“The European standards correspond to interests of the Ukrainian nation most,” he said and added that Ukrainians “are speaking about the EU as if it is their reality.”
In her turn, Ms. Plassnik remarked that EU citizens “watch Ukraine develop with great interest and kind feelings.” She is convinced one of the ways to forge closer ties is to start specific joint projects. Ms. Plassnik complimented Ukraine on its great achievements in the implementation of the 2005 Ukraine-EU Action Plan. The European Union recognized our country as market economy. We accelerated security and energy cooperation, signed several important agreements and partly liberalized visa requirements.
The European side expressed gratitude to Ukraine for helping to settle the Trans-dniester conflict. Then they discussed ways to jointly carry out energy policy in Europe.
The EU representatives said they were monitoring Ukraine’s upcoming vote on March 26 and had no doubts this election would be fair and democratic.
