Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine

The Chair of the Committee on Ukraine's Integration into the EU Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze met with a delegation of French experts — leading policymakers, representatives of ministries, think tanks and the media. She thanked the members of the delegation for their visit to Ukraine. In her opinion, this gives a clearer understanding of the problems and challenges that Ukraine faces. During the meeting, Ukraine's urgent needs, European integration, elections in Europe, in particular in France were discussed and how their results will affect support for Ukraine.

“We are all closely following what is happening after the elections in France. We hope that the support of France will continue. We are now in a very difficult situation, where urgent solutions are needed. I think many of our friends do not realise the urgency of the situation,” said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. According to her, when it comes to the recovery of Ukraine, everyone thinks that the stage of survival is over, and it is possible to focus on recovery. But it is not so. “We are still in survival mode. The situation is even more complicated than it was, for example, last year. With the problems after the Russian attacks on our energy infrastructure, when we have only 5 hours of electricity supply per day, we cannot talk about supporting the economy and collecting enough taxes for the budget”, said the Chair of the Committee. According to her, such a difficult situation in Ukraine may cause additional challenges in Europe. It could result in a new wave of refugees from Ukraine, but not only that. To succeed in this war the allies must support Ukraine militarily and technologically. “We cannot compete with Russia in terms of the number of soldiers, but we can prevail technologically,” said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. She noted that Western partners' restrictions on the use of weapons provided caused serious complications: “We can finally use Western weapons to hit Russian targets in Kharkiv direction. That's great because it helps us save lives. But how many lives did we lose before we got this permission?”

The Chair of the Committee is convinced that on the eve of the NATO summit, it is important for all allies to realise that only Ukraine's membership in the Alliance can guarantee lasting peace on the continent and significantly affect the balance of power in the world. Therefore, Putin must receive a clear signal that Ukraine will become a member of NATO. “Otherwise, he will use every opportunity to deepen disagreements within the Alliance regarding Ukraine. And the war might continue indefinitely,” she said.

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze also noted that Ukraine has made significant progress in fulfilling the requirements of the European Union and hopes that the negotiating framework with the EU will be adopted this month. In her opinion, this will help to attract more attention from European partners to the processes taking place in Ukraine. Thus, Ukraine will be able to get even more expertise and help from the EU to fulfil its tasks on the way to the European Union.