She noted that the decision of the European Council will determine whether the EU is ready to support the geopolitical proposal announced by the European Commission. “Now it is important that the European Council is picking up on these geopolitics. A famous politician once said that the European Union is an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm. So, economically, the EU remains a giant. Now it has got a chance to get rid of this geopolitical dwarfism, to strengthen the military component and turn into a real power in the world,” said the Chair of the Committee.

She called for emotional stability and willingness to continue working toward European integration. “We should not get into the swing of emotions. Even if we fail to convince Orbán and break the Russian influence at this stage on the decision-making process of the European Council, it does not mean that we should give it up and stop moving towards the West. This should be considered as an additional challenge,” urged Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. According to her, European and Euro-Atlantic integration is critically important for Ukraine because only membership in the EU and NATO can guarantee stable and lasting peace: “This formula may be not the one we would like to see. Additional semitones and wording may be needed — in some aspects, it will be possible to break through, and in some not. But for us, this must not be a 'stop' signal. For us, this is a signal to continue our run. This is not a sprint. This is a relay race. And we must pass this baton to the next team member."

The Chair of the Committee also emphasised the importance of strengthening the institutional capacity of Ukraine for reaching its ambitious goals. “Unfortunately, we found ourselves in a situation where our governmental agencies have been weakened and we do not have the institutional capacity to follow the ambitious path we have set on. We have numerous nepotic tendencies in the public governance and we need to change them to make the civil service attractive for you and people like you. We must restore respect for civil servants because only a robust backbone of the country at various levels of the public governance will allow us to pass the tests that we have to pass,” concluded Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.