“Despite the huge changes and achievements that had been made since the Revolution of Dignity, this door was opened to us by the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukrainian society, which showed its resistance. The all-out war opened this door for us. It has changed the European countries’ attitude, their awareness that this space of freedom, democracy, Europeanness should be extended to the societies that want it,” stated Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Integration of Ukraine to the EU, during the panel discussion “Start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU: new opportunities and challenges.”
She congratulated the participants of the event – regional journalists and representatives of communication teams of regional authorities on the start of membership negotiations by Ukraine.
“This really gives us perspective. This is the perspective that was not provided to Ukraine in the Association Agreement,” the MP added.
According to her, the proposed negotiating framework is very similar to the one offered to Albania. These negotiations will be based on assessment of Ukraine’s preparedness not by each of the 34 chapters, but by the so-called clusters, i.e. groups, directions of chapters, for which the country will conduct negotiations. They will open and close. And that’s good.
At the same time, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze noted that the speed of our movement will be determined by the quality of our preparation.
“And here it seems to me very important that we do not chase speed and pretty pictures. There must be an inclusive dialogue, and an incredible number of platforms for this dialogue must be created. If it looks like society is content with everything, we will lose the remaining opportunities, and we cannot allow this to happen, because we have and will have an incredible number of complex and painful decisions, which may create difficulties for a lot of Ukrainian citizens in the short term. But in the medium-term and long-term perspective, it will be a plus for these citizens,” explained the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee.
Evaluating the state of public dialogue, she focused on the role of political parties, public organizations, business associations, as well as mass media.
“Nothing happens without the fourth estate. Without the media, we will not be able to walk this path effectively, – emphasized Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze. – If it is about pressure on the media, when under the guise of military censorship everything turns into political censorship, and you will not see the opinions of other people who may think differently about how to reach the same strategic goal by other tactical means, then this means that we will quickly stop on this path.”
Serhii Sydorenko, editor and co-founder of Yevropeiska Pravda, also took part in the panel discussion. He was asked whether we should expect a decrease in European integration sentiments in Ukrainian society.
“I would not see this as a mega-problem, because there will be positive changes anyway, they will coincide with Ukraine’s recovery; there will be a multiplier effect. I see a bigger problem in low expectations of complexity. When expectations are built on the fact that we are good, resist the Russian aggressor, protect the whole of Europe and therefore should be taken to Europe tomorrow, they will cause disappointment in the fact that we are not taken. Such high expectations about speed or low expectations about time can later lead to Euroscepticism and a drop in the popularity of the idea. But all the new states faced the problem of inflated expectations from the European Union itself,” the journalist answered.
The event took place within the framework of the project “Strengthening Information Resilience in Ukraine” in partnership with the International Practitioners’ Partnership Network (Estonia) with the support of the European Union.
