High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini announced on Friday 2 September, after the first day of the Gymnich-type meeting of foreign affairs ministers in Bratislava, that the EU wanted to offer further support to full implementation of the Minsk agreements (see EUROPE 11615). The support will not, however, be political: Mogherini re-stated the EU view that the Normandy format (Ukraine, Russia, France and Germany) offers an appropriate framework.
“The European Union can support further, in a more visible but also constant way, both the Normandy format and the different work that is done especially in the framework of the OSCE”, Mogherini said at the press conference. She said that the EU could support “substantially and actively the holding of local elections in connection with the work done by the OSCE/ODIHR”, once the conditions for such elections are met. There will definitely not, she stated, be any EU boots on the ground to secure the elections, however. The EU could also announce further support for the OSCE special monitoring mission in the east of Ukraine.
“We explored possibilities for increasing our support on the ground: short-term, with actions like financial and technical support to activities to improve the living conditions of the population”, Mogherini added.
She also set out a more long-term vision: the EU could also play “a leading role in the reconstruction of the country, in particular certain regions after the full implementation of Minsk is reached”. “When it comes to the economy, when it comes to reconstruction, when it comes to humanitarian, when it comes to interconnections, when it comes to energy, transport – these are all fields where the European Union – and only the European Union – can bring a lot”, she emphasised. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)