The BE coordinator spoke out this Friday in favor of granting Ukraine the status of a candidate country for the European Union, but defended that the “standards” of the future requirement for this country to enter should not be lowered.
“BE’s position is simple: we believe that Ukraine’s candidate status to the European Union should be accepted. Naturally, the integration of Ukraine into the European Union requires requirements that, at the moment, are not met, and that the European Union must commit to fulfill, ”he said.
Catarina Martins was speaking to journalists at the Prime Minister’s official residence, after meeting with António Costa and Undersecretary of State Tiago Antunes, who are receiving the parties with parliamentary representation to prepare for next week’s European Council, in which they will discuss membership applications. of the European Union of Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and Georgia.
For the coordinator of BE, Ukraine will have to meet, in order to “one day” join the European Union, requirements in areas such as “respect for the democratic rule of law and rights, freedoms and guarantees”, arguing that the EU “should not lower the ‘standards'” in these values.
Asked if the meeting found a less cautious position on the part of the prime minister than the one that has been made public, Catarina Martins refused to reveal what António Costa had told her.
“At BE we also think that there should not be a quick accession process and that IF the conditions of the democratic rule of law and the rights, freedoms and guarantees of the population are exceeded, there are currently countries of the European Union that are not respecting them. The ‘standards’ should not be lowered from the point of view of democracy,” he said.
Catarina Martins also defended that there will be other more immediate instruments to support Ukraine, since an application process to the European Union “is a slow process”.
“The European Union can cancel its external debt now, the EU can already finance the reconstruction of places that are not theaters of war and have lost fundamental infrastructure. There is immediate support that can and should be given“, he defended.
The European Commission has recommended to the Council that Ukraine be granted the status of a candidate country for accession to the European Union (EU)issuing a similar opinion for Moldova, while for Georgia he believes that further steps are needed.
Less than a week after the start of the Russian invasion, on February 24, Ukraine formally submitted its application for membership and, in early April, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, hand-delivered, in kyiv , to President Volodymyr Zelensky the questionnaire that the Ukrainian authorities have meanwhile filled out and sent to Brussels, now impatiently awaiting the European ‘verdict’.
On Tuesday, on the occasion of a trip to The Hague, António Costa insisted that what Ukraine needs most now are immediate and practical answers, and not juridical and legal questions related to the necessarily slow process of accession to the European bloc, which can create frustration.
Source: Observadora
