Brussels, 15/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - At a plenary session debate on Wednesday 14 October, the members of the European Parliament called on Ukraine to make a determined effort to continue its reforms.
“I am very concerned that we are not progressing quickly enough. We need to bring friendly but substantial pressure to bear”, advised Knut Fleckenstein of the S&D group. We need “proper progress in the fight against corruption (and) the necessary reforms have not been set in place”, Helmut Scholz (Germany) added, on behalf of the GUE. In the view of Louis Aliot (ENF, France), in Ukraine, “nothing is clear, there is no transparency, there are no controls. Ukraine is not making any effort on this (…). According to the OECD, Ukraine is the 142nd country out of 175 in the fight against corruption (and) the EU continues to pay out uncontrollable and uncontrolled funds”, he said.
Greens group MEP Rebecca Harms (Germany) stated that the work on reforms should continue constructively, hand in hand with the EU and keeping in place sanctions against Russia. Lithuania's Petras Austrevicius, of ALDE, also opposed any relaxing of sanctions against Russia, because “the Kremlin would see it as weakness on the part of the EU”.
The MEPs also discussed the implementation of the Minsk agreements. Speaking on behalf of the EPP, Cristian Dan Preda (Romania) stressed that these agreements should be fully implemented, even if the initial timetable seems a bit of a stretch, in other words to do so by the end of the year. He also said that the local elections were an “important test” for the central authorities, as it was an “opportunity to prove their democratic commitment”.
As for the meeting held in Normandy format on 2 October (see EUROPE 11403), this was described by Austrevicius as a “real step forward”. It received a similar assessment from Fleckenstein, who said that this “Paris meeting gave rise to hopes that a peaceful solution can be found (…) through a policy of small steps”. “We have to note that the ceasefire continues to hold out”, James Carver (EFDD, UK) pointed out. However, Austrevicius cautioned against being “too optimistic”, as a soldier was killed as recently as 12 October and humanitarian organisations are still unable to carry out their work in areas controlled by pro-Russian separatists.
Speaking on behalf of of the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, the Commissioner for Justice and Consumers, Vera Jourova, said that this “conflict is not over yet”, but that the process was moving in the right direction. “We are moving forward slowly and, on occasion, hesitantly”, she also acknowledged. She went on to reiterate that just under €6 billion out of the €11 billion pledged to Ukraine in March 2014 to help it in its reforms had so far been disbursed. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)