The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenand the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, visit Ukraine today, Friday, to bring to that country a message of “complete solidarity” of the European Union (EU) and learn first-hand what is happening.
The official trip of the President of the Community Executive and the head of European diplomacy coincides with the approval of the fifth package of EU sanctions against Russiawhich includes for the first time a ban on energy imports, although only coal.
Some new sectoral economic restrictions and individual sanctions that Von der Leyen and Borrell will have the opportunity to personally detail to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with whom they plan to hold a meeting, as announced today by a spokesman for him and confirmed later by official sources in Brussels.
The message that Von der Leyen will take to Zelensky and the Ukrainian people is the “complete solidarity of the EU with Ukraine in the face of the invasion by Russia,” the Commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, reported today.
In addition, the former German defense minister “will reiterate and discuss all the support that the EU is providing and will continue to provide to Ukraine in these difficult circumstances,” she said.
Meetings with Ukrainian ministers
The agenda of the visit in kyiv, of which hardly any details have emerged for security reasons, also includes other meetings with the foreign and defense ministers, Dmytro Kuleba and Oleksiy Reznikovrespectively, Borrell told the press upon his arrival today at NATO headquarters to participate in a foreign ministerial meeting and another of the G7.
After that visit to kyiv “surely we will know better what is happening there,” said the head of European diplomacy, who hopes to be able to inform his interlocutors of the latest European sanctions and “other measures”, which he did not specify.
Borrell insisted yesterday that Ukraine needs “less applause and more weapons”, and opted to continue pressuring Russia with international isolation and more sanctions, also on its oil, which he hopes to include on the list of European sanctions “sooner rather than later”, and that will be on the table of the Council of Community Foreign Ministers next Monday.
“Now we have to look at oil and we will have to look at the income that Russia obtains from these fossil fuels,” Von der Leyen stressed on Wednesday before the European Parliament, which today supported by a very large majority a “complete and immediate” European embargo on Russian imports. oil, coal, nuclear fuel and gas.
The commitment to go “further” in the sanctions against Russia had already been defended last Friday in kyiv, before the Russian massacres of civilians around the capital were known, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, the first leader of a European institution to go to the country since the war began on February 24 last.
What has the EU done for Ukraine?
The Twenty-Seven made it clear which side they were on since the beginning of the Russian military invasion more than 40 days ago.
Since then and in coordination with its Western allies, the EU will be chaining five waves of sanctionsincreasingly harsh, to try to suffocate the economy that supports the Kremlin’s war machine, and has unlocked military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
The EU has gone to the point of open the borders without restrictions to Ukrainians who have fled their country – more than four million, mostly women and children -, who are granted a temporary regime as refugees, which is the first time that it activates and gives the right to work permit, residence, health care and education.
Another innovative measure taken by the EU has been to approve the spending of one billion euros on military aid to kyiv so that countries can supply weapons on their own from the Fund for Peace, which had never been used for a third country.
In addition, the EU has adopted the necessary legislative amendments to allow member states to redirect resources from various funds worth some €17 billion to help Ukrainian refugees.
To try to raise more funds, a donors’ conference for Ukraine sponsored by the European Commission and Canada is held in Warsaw on the 9th.