Good evening, I am happy to welcome Prime Minister [of Ukraine, Denys] Shmyhal to Brussels. Everybody knows that the partnership with Ukraine is one of the most strategically important that we have around the world. https://www.eudebates.tv/debates/eu-policies/enlargement-and-foreign-affairs/ukraine-focus-on-eu-goals-to-reinforce-economic-integration/ And it is very significant for us. It reflects the wide range of areas of our cooperation, as well as the frequency of our exchanges.

[The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement] is the most wide-reaching agreement that the European Union has with any of its partners. It has delivered so much for Ukrainian citizens and also for us.

Today, we have reaffirmed our mutual commitment to strengthening the political association and economic integration.

#Borrell​ #Varhely​ #Shmyhal​ #EU​ #Ukraine​ #MinskAgreement

In our exchanges, I underlined the European Union’s solidarity with the Ukrainian people in face of the coronavirus pandemic.

I also noted that the European Union has already provided significant overall financial assistance to Ukraine. We are talking about €16 billion since 2014. And we are already helping Ukraine gain access to vaccines through COVAX and are exploring ways to further support Ukraine through a vaccine sharing mechanism at the European Union level.

I reassured the Prime Minister of the European Union’s unwavering support and commitment to Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders.

This is a message that I also passed in my meeting last week to Foreign Minister [of Russia, Sergei] Lavrov, including the need to fulfil and implement the Minsk agreements.

You know very well that the European Union does not recognise Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and Sevastopol.

We will continue to fully support the diplomatic efforts aimed at restoring Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. We will continue to support the efforts in the Normandy format, the Trilateral Contact Group and in the OSCE format.

The duration of our economic sanctions against Russia remains linked to the complete implementation of the Minsk agreements.

We talked a lot about the reform efforts made by Ukraine. Much has been done, but we expect reforms to continue to advance despite the pandemic, particularly to strengthen the rule of law and the fight against corruption.

There is a need to restore broad public trust in Ukraine’s judicial system and to develop and implement an anticorruption agenda to ensure the independence of anti-corruption institutions.

We also continue to insist on a full investigation into the PrivatBank bank fraud that took place 6 years ago.

We also discussed our extensive cooperation and Ukraine’s economic integration and regulatory approximation with the European Union, which is very much beneficial for our trade with Ukraine and the economy.