EU is ready to take leading role in restoration of Ukraine, - European Commission
The official representative of the European Commission, Ana Pisonero, declared the readiness of the European Union to play a leading role in the restoration of Ukraine’s infrastructure.
This is reported by Censor.NET with reference to Interfax-Ukraine.
"The European Union is fully ready to play a leading role in calling for the restoration of Ukraine," Pisonero said at a briefing in Brussels. She reminded that the G7 countries agreed to coordinate activities on this issue.
"The Commission proposed to take over the secretariat of this structure. The long-term needs of recovery will be enormous. It will be necessary to coordinate the efforts of all participants: the European Union, member states, European financial institutions, and international organizations. And the private sector will also be invited," the EC representative said.
"We need to start planning our work today. This is important," Pisonero continued, noting that the EU's attention was currently focused on helping Ukraine to meet the country's basic needs and the most urgent financial needs.
She explained that macro-financial support was provided for this, but "it is clear that within the framework of long-term recovery, it is time to get to work." The press secretary emphasized a number of conferences held for this purpose, in particular, the one in Berlin, which took place recently. Source:
https://censor.net/en/n3392233
Ukraine-EU summit will take place in Kyiv, said Danielsson, ambassador of Sweden
The permanent representative of Sweden, which currently chairs the EU Council, to the European Union, Lars Danielsson, said that the Ukraine-EU summit will take place on February 3 in Kyiv.
He said this during a meeting with journalists in Brussels on Monday, Censor.NET reports with reference to "Euro Integration".
Danielsson said that "Ukraine and military aggression against Ukraine will dominate everything that Sweden will do during its presidency" in the EU. Stockholm intends to contribute to Kyiv's "strong desire" to move closer to EU membership.
According to him, the European Union has already done a lot to support Ukraine, "however, more must be done so that the process of support - humanitarian, financial, military - does not stop."
The diplomat also said that Sweden will look for ways to prosecute those who committed war crimes in Ukraine and to use frozen Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine's infrastructure and economy.
Earlier, the press secretary of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel Barend Leits, reported that the Ukraine-EU summit should be held in Brussels, and Volodymyr Zelensky received an invitation to it.
But later it became known that the European Union has not yet confirmed that the summit will take place in Kyiv, not Brussels.
The place of the summit is still not indicated on the website of the European Council.
According to the Association Agreement, the Ukraine-EU summit is an annual event. The last, the 23rd summit, took place in October 2021 in Kyiv.
It was planned that the 2022 summit would take place in December, and it was supposed to be in Brussels. On the Ukrainian side, there were preliminary announcements regarding its holding. However, in the end, it was decided to postpone the summit to early 2023.
According to the media, among the reasons for the postponement was the lack of real results of such a meeting; in particular, as is known, the EU side had problems until the last moment even with the approval of the package of macro-financial assistance promised within the framework of the G7 in the amount of 18 billion euros. Source:
https://censor.net/en/n3392216