The Brussels staff, led by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenand the President of the European Council, Charles-Michelwill begin a two-day official trip to Ukraine tomorrow Thursday to show their support for the country a few days after the first anniversary of the Russian invasion.
About fifteen European commissioners will arrive in Ukraine this Thursday to hold the first meeting in the history of the Community Executive in a country at war, in a day with a more symbolic than practical character, since no great advances are expected in the relationship between the EU and Ukraine.
Taking into account the security conditions, the majority of the members of the Commission will start the return trip to Brussels tomorrowwith the exception of Von der Leyen, who will meet on Friday with Michel and the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, to celebrate the 24th summit between the EU and Ukraine.
After the recent go-ahead from Germany to deliver the Leopard 2 tanks and with the pressure from kyiv to obtain fighter planes, no decisions of this type are expected since the EU does not have its own weapons, but the decision to train will be announced. another 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers on community territory to train them in handling the weapons that Western countries are offering Ukraine.
The EU countries launched the military training mission last November to train 15,000 soldiers over two years, but Brussels calculates that its instruction will culminate in the first half of 2023, so before At the end of the year, more uniformed personnel will begin to be trained.
Thus, a total of 30,000 soldiers will be trained under the umbrella of the EUbeyond the troops that various European countries are forming individually.
The seventh disbursement of 500 million euros of the European Peace Support Fund with which the European partners finance part of the weapons they give to kyiv, in such a way that they will have allocated 3,600 million to that objective.
In total, the financial support from Brussels and the Member States to kyiv already amounts to some 60,000 million euros, including military material, support for reconstruction and the daily functioning of the country in the middle of the war, as well as aid for refugees. .
During the summit they will also address the 10-point peace plan proposed by Zelensky, to which the EU is “fully committed”, according to European sources, and which involves guaranteeing Ukraine’s nuclear security, restoring its territorial integrity, leaving of Russian troops and the creation of a court to judge war crimes.
Zelensky, Von der Leyen and Michel will also speak on this last point, in view of the preparations by the EU and its partners to establish a international center in The Hague to coordinate the investigation of war crimes committed in Ukraine and that it serve as the basis for the future special court that is to be created to judge the crimes, but on which there is still no consensus on the format.
On the table will also be the process of Ukraine’s accession to the EU after having obtained the status of a candidate country. Brussels will insist on the need for kyiv to carry out the reforms that it demands in terms of the rule of law and commitment to European values and in this sense they will celebrate the recent dismissals of members of the Government to combat corruption.
However, Brussels curbs expectations of the rapid accession to which Zelensky aspires. “It is clear that Ukraine will be an EU country when it meets the requirements,” said a European source, who at the same time ended the debate by saying that “when we have tried to speculate the exact moment for an accession, we have shown a failure in the precision of our predictions.
With information from EFE
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Source-www.infobae.com