German Ambassador To Ukraine Says Kiev Should Not Hope For Quick Accession To EU, NATO

Kiev should not expect to join to the European Union and NATO quickly as it still has a lot to do to achieve this goal, German Ambassador to Ukraine Ernst Reichel told the Evropeiska Pravda news website in an interview published on Thursday.

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th February, 2019) Kiev should not expect to join to the European Union and NATO quickly as it still has a lot to do to achieve this goal, German Ambassador to Ukraine Ernst Reichel told the Evropeiska Pravda news website in an interview published on Thursday.

"Ukraine's quick entry into the European Union or NATO is not a realistic prospect. You [Ukraine] have a long and winding path ahead. Ukraine will have to do a lot to prepare itself for the status of a candidate to join both organizations," Reichel said.

He noted that promises of Ukrainian presidential hopefuls to immediately achieve EU and NATO membership in the event of a victory were purely populistic.

"Nevertheless, the European Union remains an open project. Any European country has the right to apply for EU membership, this also applies to Ukraine ... NATO also declares an open door policy. Therefore, Ukraine has every reason to remain ambitious," Reichel said.

Early last week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced his intention to run for a second term in the upcoming election.

He then said that the country would submit an application to become a EU member state in 2024.

European integration is one of the key priorities for the current Ukrainian leadership. In November, the Ukrainian parliament passed a series of constitutional amendments defining EU and NATO accession as the country's major foreign policy goals.

Ukraine's presidential election will be held on March 31. The country's Central Election Commission has registered 37 candidates. The current front-runner of the presidential race is comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who, according to a poll published by the Rating pollster on Monday, is projected to receive 21.9 percent of the vote. The same poll showed that 19.2 percent of voters favored the head of Ukraine's pro-European Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party, Yulia Tymoshenko, while Poroshenko was ranked third with just 14.8 percent of projected votes.