Head of Eastern European, Russian, and Central Asian programs at Germany`s Foreign Policy Council Stefan Meister commented on the situation around visa liberalization for Ukraine.
According to the expert, if the decision fails to pass shortly, the frustration with the EU actions will be increasing and the support of Ukraine`s European integration will drop, accordingly, the Ukrainian news portal Apostrophe reported.
Mr. Meister noted that Ukraine had fulfilled its obligation under the Visa Liberalization Action Plan, and the EU had to finalize the process of visa lib earlier in November 2016.
Read also”No one postponed anything”: EP source elaborates on date of Ukraine visa lib vote ”But this problem regards Ukraine only partly. The main reason is the crisis within the European club as a result of a big migration flow last year. Therefore, there is no will among the Member States to grant a visa free regime for such a big country as Ukraine,” the expert said.
He said that the growing pressure of populist movements added more problems as migration is a very sensitive issue. Moreover, certain Member States wish to see more progress in tackling corruption in Ukraine, therefore they keep blocking visa lib at the moment.
As UNIAN reported earlier, the date of a scheduled vote on Ukraine issue was deleted from the EP website.
The EP Secretariat was instructed to remove the date in order not to create ”false negative expectations.”
