“I would like to express my gratitude to you, Mr. President for the words of support of Ukraine’s Euro-integrational aspirations and for active stand of Your country in the course of discussions of further development of the EU-Ukraine relations in the EU institutions. Particularly, in the context of prospects of signing the Association Agreement,” Volodymyr Rybak said during the meeting with the President of the Republic of Latvia Andris Berzins on Friday.
“The EU-Ukraine Summit on February 25 this year was an important stage in the context of determining further moves in order to sign the Association Agreement during the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November 2013,” noted the Chairman of the Parliament.
Thereat, Volodymyr Rybak named the fact of support of the Euro-integrational course by the majority of forces represented in the Verkhovna Rada to be especially important in the context of implementation of the required reforms. He noted that on February 22, 2013 the Verkhovna Rada has adopted the respective statement on the support of the Euro-integrational aspirations of Ukraine and on conclusion of the Association Agreement by the constitutional majority.
According to Volodymyr Rybak, another important item of the EU-Ukraine relation agenda is the visa free regime. In this context, he named transition to the second “implementation” phase of the Action Plan on Visa Liberalization and enactment of amendments to the Visa Facilitation Agreement to be the key tasks for the coming months. He noted also that the majority of the legislative acts required for fulfillment of the first “legislative” phase of the Action Plan are already adopted.
Thereat, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada emphasized that the Ukrainian Parliament intends to consider bills on European integration as top priority ones.
In his turn, President of the Republic of Latvia stressed that Latvia “fully supports” European aspirations of Ukraine and is ready to share its EU accession experience.