Brussels, The The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who is visiting Ukraine again, stressed tonight that “Ukraine’s future is as a member of the European Union” and that the EU will accompany the country throughout this process.o.
“Ukraine’s future is as a member of the European Union. We will walk all the way with you,” said the Maltese politician through her official profile on the social network Twitter.
Metsola accompanied her message with a photo in which she appears fused in a hug with the president of the Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk. “Great to see my friend again,” she noted.
“Cooperation between the European Parliament and the Ukrainian Parliament will only strengthen,” said the conservative politician.
Stefanchuk also published photos of the meeting with Metsola on his profile on the same social network, and assured that they had “discussed the path of Ukraine in the EU and the steps to accelerate our integration.”
Stefanchuk told Metsola that he was “grateful” for the resolution adopted on February 24 at the United Nations General Assembly reaffirming the need for an immediate withdrawal of all Russian military forces from Ukrainian territory and the immediate cessation of attacks against the critical infrastructures of that country, as well as the need to achieve a general, just and lasting peace as soon as possible.
The president of the European Parliament paid special attention, according to the president of the Rada, to the ten-point peace plan of the Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, and called “to support this initiative” to end the military invasion of Russia.
Metsola announced on Friday night by surprise his return to kyiv.
“Glad to be back in Ukraine,” he wrote on his Twitter, accompanied by a photo of himself.
The Maltese politician stated that she has returned to Ukraine “with those brave men who inspired the world. With those heroes who refuse to give up. With those who sacrificed everything for our values. With the Europeans whose home is in our European Union”.
Community sources told EFE that, for security reasons, details of their trip cannot be previously announced.
Metsola became on April 1, 2022 the first leader of a European institution to visit Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war of aggression against that country on February 24 of that year.
So, he ended his visit with a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky.
Since then, the trips of the highest representatives of the institutions of the European Union (EU) have been happening.
The most prominent of them was on February 2, when the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and 15 of her commissioners went to Kiev to hold a meeting with Zelenski and a large part of the Ukrainian government.
The message they then took to Ukraine was to offer Ukraine further integration with the EU as it progresses on its path to membership.
They also promised more sanctions against Russia for the first anniversary of the war, the tenth package of restrictive measures that was approved on February 24.
Then, on February 3, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, joined Zelensky and von der Leyen in the Ukrainian capital for the first EU-Ukraine summit since the Russian invasion.
So far, according to EU sources, the EU has invested 67 billion euros in Ukraine since the start of the war, taking into account macro-financial assistance, military support with common funds, military support provided bilaterally by Member States and aid mobilized in favor of Ukrainian refugees displaced by the conflict.
The EU is currently considering how to quickly provide Ukraine with urgently needed ammunition to continue defending itself against Russian forces while replenishing its stockpiles, a matter that the Union’s defense ministers will discuss at their informal meeting on 7-8 March in Stockholm. EFE
