REVIEW - Borrell, Shmyhal Call For Greater Cooperation At EU-Ukraine Association Council

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th February, 2021) The EU's embattled foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal for the seventh Association Council meeting on Thursday, with both parties committing to deepen their bilateral cooperation over the coming months and years.

Borrell was grilled in the European Parliament two days ago over his recent trip to Moscow for talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The bloc's foreign policy chief talked tough on Russia, repeating the EU's long-standing support for Ukraine's "independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity."

During a joint press conference on Thursday evening, Borrell and Shmyhal stressed that Brussels and Kiev were trying to find common ground, as topics of discussion included energy, the COVID-19 pandemic, and rule of law reforms.

Borrell began his address by stressing that Ukraine was one of the EU's most strategically important partners, a fact that was underlined by Shmyhal who said that Ukraine conducts 41 percent of its total trade with the bloc.

"Everybody knows that the partnership with Ukraine is one of the most strategically important that we have around the world, the most strategically important, and it is very significant for us," Borrell said, underlining that the bloc has given Ukraine 16 billion Euros ($19.4 billion) in assistance since 2014.

The EU's top diplomat noted Ukraine's apparent desire to implement policies in line with the European Green Deal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's landmark pledge to make the bloc "climate neutral" by 2050.

"One of the problems that affects our relationship with Russia, and with Eastern countries, it is gas supply. In Ukraine, they will have to face an important energy transition, and we are ready to help Ukraine with that," he said.

EU PLEDGES TO HELP UKRAINE WITH COVID-19 VACCINE PROCUREMENT

The European Union has already helped Ukraine procure COVID-19 vaccines through the World Health Organization-led COVAX Facility, Borrell said, noting that the bloc is also looking to establish an internal vaccine sharing scheme.

"We are already helping Ukraine to gain access to vaccines through COVAX and are exploring ways to further support Ukraine through a vaccine sharing mechanism at the European Union level," the foreign policy chief said.

In turn, the European commissioner for neighborhood and enlargement, Oliver Varhelyi, said that the bloc had managed to help Ukraine, which has a population of more than 44 million, secure 117,000 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine.

"We are happy to say that it seems that the COVAX initiative should be able, together with our help, [to] deliver 117,000 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to Ukraine, and we're also looking at some additional vaccines coming from the AstraZeneca company," Varhelyi said.

Ukraine has taken steps to ban the registration and use of Russian-made COVID-19 vaccines in the country.

The European Union has been slammed over the lethargic pace of its COVID-19 vaccine rollout program, and von der Leyen on Wednesday admitted to the European Parliament that "mistakes were made."

Serbia, which has procured COVID-19 vaccines from Russia and China, has a vaccination rate more than twice as high as the current European Union average, and President Aleksandar Vucic told the Euronews broadcaster on Wednesday that the country has yet to receive a single dose from the bloc.

"Many EU countries got their vaccine, and so far we didn't get a single one from the COVAX program. We got it from our bilateral arrangement with the Americans, with Pfizer, we got it from China, we got it from Russia, but we didn't get it from the European Union," Vucic said.

EU CALLS FOR REFORMS, PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES

During the press conference, Borrell made it known that the European Union still expects Ukraine to enact significant anti-corruption reforms aimed at ensuring the rule of law.

"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 anti-corruption agenda to ensure the independence of anti-corruption institutions," Borrell stated.

Varhelyi said that he had communicated the bloc's demand that the rights of national minorities in Ukraine are protected. In January, Ukraine's service sector was ordered to switch exclusively to the Ukrainian language as part of the ongoing implementation of the state language law adopted by ex-President Petro Poroshenko in 2019.

"At the meetings, I reiterated the need for Ukraine to ensure the respect for the right of national minorities and to launch a substantive dialogue with the representatives of minorities," the European commissioner said.

The European Union, in a press release published after the briefing, said that its representatives had stressed the "importance of freedom of expression" during talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.

However, there was no mention during the press conference of the Ukrainian government's February 3 decision to ban three broadcasters - 112.Ukraine, NewsOne, and ZIK - after sanctions were placed on opposition lawmaker Taras Kozak.

During his multi-day trip to Brussels, Shmyhal has met with a host of leading officials, including European Council President Charles Michel and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.