KYIV. June 25 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The leaders of the European Union leaders should provide Ukraine with the prospect of membership to give impetus to a painful economic overhaul, Slovak President Andrej Kiska said.
“What I’m missing from the EU is to give a really strong signal that, yes, we do consider you potentially to be an EU member,” Kiska said in an interview with Bloomberg released on Wednesday.
He believes the protests that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych last year were driven by Ukrainians’ desire to belong to a democratic Europe.
However, he said that while transforming Ukraine’s economy and institutions for entry may take 20 years, “the EU must keep the possibility [of membership] alive.”
“People have to have a vision that now we are in tough times but it’s because we’ll have a nice future,” he said.
Kiska stressed: “We have to give our support to Ukraine and to put pressure on Russia and show that the EU is united.”
“There’s no way we should do a reduction of sanctions or anything before the Minsk agreement is fulfilled,” Kiska told Bloomberg.
