Germany will offer Kyiv support for its efforts to navigate the path to EU accession, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during a surprise visit to Eastern Ukraine.
Baerbock travelled to Kharkiv on Tuesday as the first German government member to visit the war-torn region. The Green minister was accompanied by her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev.
“It is important to me that, in this winter of war, we do not lose sight of Ukraine’s place inside the European family,” she said during a public appearance, the foreign ministry said.
“Ukrainians are fighting every day for a self-determined life. They see their future in Europe, in the EU,” she added.
The German government, she promised, will make concrete support offers to Kyiv when it comes to strengthening the rule of law and independent institutions, as well as fighting corruption and adapting to EU legal standards.
Ever since Ukraine was awarded EU candidate status in June 2022, the country has rushed to show progress on the far-reaching reforms needed to come closer to the goal of membership.
According to reports by several news agencies, Baerbock visited a destroyed transformer station and met with children and parents in a children’s hospital.
Kharkiv, as a city that was occupied, shelled, and finally liberated is “a symbol for the complete madness of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and for the endless suffering that people, especially here in the country’s east, are facing every day,” she said.
(Julia Dahm | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
