Foreign Affairs Coordinator for Socialists and Democrats (S&D) in the European Parliament Tonino Picula travels to Ukraine today asa part of the ad hoc delegation of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET). In the next two days he will meet with Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Dmytro Razumkov, Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas, Members of the Ukrainian Parliament (Supreme Rada) and Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov.
"Following the presidential and parliamentary elections this year, the European Union expects Ukraine to continue with the ongoing reforms and organization of public administration. We remain concerned about the lack of progress in the judiciary, especially regarding the appointment of judges of the Supreme Court", said Picula on the eve of his official mission to Kiev.
The mission in Kiev is preceded by a new "Normandy Four" summit on the situation in Ukraine, which will resume after a three-year hiatus next Monday, December 9, in Paris. French President Emmanuel Macron will receive German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and recently elected President of Ukraine Volodimir Zelensky. Following the exchange of prisoners between Ukraine and Russia in September, all eyes in Ukraine are now on the possibility of meeting Putin and Zelensky alone. Prior to the Paris summit, there will be a NATO summit in London, where the Alliance is expected to support Ukraine, which is likely to have an impact on the Paris meeting.
The meeting between representatives of the European Union and Ukraine are complicated also because of the political crisis in the United States beacuse of the impechment process by US President Donald Trump, because his talk with Ukrainian President Zelensky is in focus.
MEP Picula has been in Ukraine in previous mandates: in 2014, as a member of the European Parliament Crisis Delegation trying to mediate the tensions there, he stayed in Kiev, on Maidan and in Kharkiv. In 2015, Picula was part of an election observation mission in Ukraine. In his previous term, MEP Picula was a shadow rapporteur and spokesman for Ukraine on behalf of his political groupSocialists and Democrats, working on reports on the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement and macro-financial assistance to Ukraine.
