Brussels, 24/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On 24 February, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia called in Paris for the “strict implementation of all the arrangements in the Minsk agreements, starting with a total ceasefire and full withdrawal of heavy weapons”.
“We must be more ambitious in implementing the agreement in order to have a sustainable ceasefire”, said Germany's minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. After a three-hour meeting, the so-called Normandy-format ministers also called for the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) mission to be strengthened with additional personnel, equipment and financing - as well for the mission to be extended for a year.
Rebecca Harms wants UN peacekeepers to be sent. Conversely, the co-leader of the European Parliament's Greens/EFA Group, Rebecca Harms from Germany, called the same day for a mission of UN peacekeepers to be sent to monitor the boundary line and the border between Russia and Ukraine. “I don't believe a ceasefire can hold without this type of mission”, she told several journalists upon returning from Ukraine. In Harms' view, the people involved on the ground do not believe that the OSCE mission can be a success due to a lack of confidence in it and the scant means at its disposal to ensure the ceasefire is respected. The police mission, as requested by Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, is not a good solution because “it is not strong enough”, Harms stated (see EUROPE 11257).
She also said that the EU should be more serious regarding respect of the ceasefire and the Ukrainian authorities' commitment to reforming their country and fighting corruption. “There is a huge need in terms of reforms”, she said. “Helping them does not mean authorising Ukraine to delay the reforms”, Harms stated, wanting the aid to be subject to conditions. She added that “without huge support from the EU, the war will kill the reforms, and Euromaidan's ideas will run aground” (our translation throughout). (Camille-Cerise Gessant)