Business news from Ukraine

Poroshenko hopes for visa-free travel with EU from 2016

9 April , 2015  

KYIV. April 9 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The Ukrainian authorities are hoping that after the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga the European Union will recognize Kyiv’s prospects for European integration and will agree to cancel visa requirements from January 1, 2016, Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko said.

“We must get (answers to) two main questions. First: recognition of the European prospect for Ukraine. Second: support for the Ukrainian bid to secure visa-free travel from January 1, 2016,” Poroshenko said after talks with his Polish counterpart Bronislaw Komorowski in Kyiv on Wednesday.

The Eastern Partnership summit is due to be held in Riga on May 21-22.

For his part, the Polish president said that he thinks it possible to grant Ukraine visa-free travel at the May summit.

“On this issue, the Polish position is definitely pro-Ukrainian, and we are certain that there is a possibility to secure such a regime and there is a possibility to secure the same position from the whole of the EU that will be making a political decision on the matter,” Komorowski said.