Stressing the need for reform in Ukraine, Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has announced in Kiev an extra tranche of €110 million in support of SMEs in the war-torn country.
Speaking today at the International Support for Ukraine Conference, President Juncker stressed the need to keep delivering credible reforms. He described this as a contract between the EU and Ukraine – but also a contract between Ukraine and its people.
Duringhis speech he also highlighted examples of successful reforms – such as in energy, or anti-corruption.
At the same time,EUleaders have resisted Ukraine’s demands for peacekeepers, as monitors reported a surge in shelling near a strategic government-held city in the east.Observers from theOrganisationfor Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) say shelling continues in the east despite a cease-fire deal signed in the Belarusian capital Minsk in February.
Ukraine’s pro-Western President Petro Poroshenko called on the EU officials “to deploy an international peacekeeping mission in our country which will contribute to the complete fulfilment of the Minsk accords.”
But Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council of EU leaders, said after the summit, “We know about Ukrainian expectations today, but it’s impossible to send a military mission.”
Tusk did say, however, that the EU would “send as soon as possible a civilian assessment mission… to assess the humanitarian situation” in Ukraine.
The OSCE said its monitors on 26 April witnessed “the most intense shelling” near the flashpoint town of Shyrokyn since fighting began there in mid-February, as well as the movement of heavy weapons.
The OSCE said in a statement that they “observed sporadic to continuous exchanges of fire involving small arms, machine guns, rocket propelled grenade and automatic grenade launchers”.
Shyrokyne lies a few kilometers from the port of Mariupol, the biggest city still under Kiev’s control in the conflict zone.
Juncker also reiterated that the EU would provide financial assistance of 1.8 billion euros. Separately, he pledged the European Commission would make further financial assistance of 70 million euros to ensure a “return to a safe environment” at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The assistance will go towards building a new safety structure round the existing sarcophagus of the reactor which exploded in April 1986 in what was then the world’s worst nuclear accident.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/juncker-announces-extra-money-for-ukraine/