During a working visit to Brussels the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze took part in a meeting of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee with the participation of representatives of national parliaments of the EU member states. Speaking to the European parliamentarians she called on all political groups to address the colleagues in the Netherlands in order to reach an appropriate solution for Ukraine and the EU regarding the ratification of Association agreement. “We believe in values, promises and honesty. Ukraine has chosen Europe and Russia punishes us for that” – said Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.

Vice Prime Minister reported on the progress of the Ukrainian reforms in the situation of war. Particularly, she drew attention to 1 % of economic growth which Ukraine has reached this year, also to the fact that the banking system was cleared, energy consumption was significantly reduced and the electronic declaration system for the Ukrainian officials was introduced on time. According to her, an important achievement of Ukraine was a broad scope of the electronic system of government purchases of Prozorro  , effectiveness of which was acknowledged in all over the world and thanks to which 16% of savings are expected in the sphere of government purchases.

Discussing the process of implementation of visa-free regime between Ukraine and the EU, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze emphasized that Ukraine has fulfilled all the 144 criteria of Visa liberalization action plan. “We accomplished all what was required. We expect that the European partners will honestly uphold their promises. We don’t want to be the hostages regarding the visa suspension mechanism”- she stated.

The Vice Prime Minister paid a special attention to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. She stressed that the progress in the political aspect of Minsk agreement is possible only after the fulfillment of the security part of the agreement. “We hear the voices in Europe, which call for improvement in the relationship with Russia when the war continues. It looks like the capitulation of Europe. We believe in freedom and democratic values and this makes us different from Russia. We didn’t choose Russia as our enemy, it was Russia who chose Ukraine to be its enemy. Europe didn’t consider Russia as its opponent, it was done by Russia”, - underlined Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.