Costa: Ukraine's best security guarantee is its affiliation with EU
European Council President António Costa is convinced that the best guarantee of security for Ukraine is membership in the European Union. It is difficult to say when this happens since it is a process based on achievements.
He said this on Tuesday in Brussels as part of the conference "Europe: Strength through Crisis," organized by the European Policy Center.
In particular, Costa was asked whether he agrees that Ukraine's membership is possible until 2030 and what security guarantees could be. To this, the President of the European Council said: “The best security guarantee for Ukraine is the European accession and we are in the good path and the assessment from the European Commission is very positive about what Ukrainians are doing to prepare for the accession.”
Costa noted that “it is very impressive to see how a country in war, in this terrible situation, has the ability to deliver on reforms and on convergence targets to access to the European Union.” “I don't know if it is in 2030, 2028, 2032, I don't know. But, as you know, it is a merit-based process and they are delivering. That perhaps could be earlier, can be only in 2030, I don't know. The main issue is not the date, it is the process and the common will to achieve this. And, at the same time, we need to prepare from now to the future of the construction of Ukraine,” the President of the European Council stated.
He noted that at the last meeting of the European Council the European Commission was instructed in the aspect of the restoration of Ukraine “to build a large coalition of willing of a major, because it needs a major effort of the international community to rebuild Ukraine.” “Of course, in any peace negotiation, we need to talk about the peace and access. In fact, we need to talk about reparation, war reparation, and it is for this that we have this access freeze [of Russia], to ensure that in the future we have not just a lasting peace, but also a just peace, because we cannot reward the aggression. Because this war, in fact, is not only about Ukraine. It is about the rules-based order. It is about respect of the United Nations Charter. And the message we are sending to the world is the international law must prevail, and aggression cannot be rewarded,” Costa said.
