Brussels, 16/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 April, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn stated that the EU is a crucial support for “change” in Ukraine.
“Change in Ukraine is possible. It is happening - and is happening with the crucial support of the EU”, Hahn said at a conference organised by Bertelsmann Stiftung, adding that “the EU will be the key player for supporting the necessary changes”. In Hahn's view, “the EU must be assured that Ukraine has the means to change, if it has the [political] will to do so”. Since the Maidan events, which began in November 2013, the EU has mobilised around €6 billion for Ukraine.
Stating that Ukraine's administrative capacity was still weak and needed to be modernised, Hahn said that this should not be an excuse for not moving forwards with reforms. He also criticised the problem of corruption, stating that this should be “punished”. “Still more importantly, it must be avoided and a new professional culture of openness and transparency should be created”, he added, saying he believed that the decisive anti-corruption test will focus on government procurement and the privatisation of state enterprise.
Hahn highlighted corruption in the energy sector. “Energy is a major source of corruption”, he said. He also said he believed that the energy domain was a domain that the Ukrainian government should see as a priority in terms of reforms. He regretted the lack of Ukrainian energy efficiency, pointing out that energy wastage in Ukraine was 10 to 20 times above the European average and that Ukraine used three times as much energy to produce a unit of GDP as the OECD average. “If Ukraine increased its energy efficiency to the EU level, the annual energy savings would be around 34 billion cubic metres of gas. This would mean that Ukraine would no longer have to import gas. Just think what this would mean in terms of national security”, he said.
Hahn also stated that Russia's concerns must be discussed, when they are justified, as regards the association agreement and the deep and comprehensive free trade area between Ukraine and the EU. He said that the agreement would not be changed because many member states have already ratified it, or are in the process of doing so. (Camille-Cerise Gessant)