Ukraine week in the EP in Brussels. Closing statements by Pat COX, Former EP President, Helga SCHMID, Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service, Andrej PLENKOVIĆ (EPP, HR), Chair of the EP delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, and Ostap SEMERAK, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee.

EU - Ukraine Association Agreement (T)

EU - Ukraine (T)

Brussels

conference

PLENKOVIĆ, Andrej (EPP, HR)

COX, Pat (ELDR, IE, Patrick)

Ukraine week in the EP: extracts from the closing event with Pat COX, Volodymyr GROYSMAN, Speaker of the Verhovna Rada

Atmosphere at the beginning of the meeting, people arriving, Ukrainian MPs putting on Nadia Savchenko (Ukrainian politician and former pilot currently imprisoned in Russia) T-shirts (4 shots)

SOUNDBITE (English), Pat COX, Former EP President, The most important thing is that all of our colleagues and friends from Ukraine have to take their own ownership and produce their own wisdom around this. This will not work and cannot work as some kind of imposition from the outside.

SOUNDBITE (English), Helga SCHMID, Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service, Do not drop the ball now, this is what I would like to say. The role of the Rada cannot be overestimated. It is parliments' role to keep governments accountable, and to adopt the necessary laws and reforms that are the basis for transformative change. Let me say that the EU, The External Action Service, the High Representative are deeply committed to accompanying Ukraine on this journey.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVI&#262; (EPP, HR), Chair of the EP delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, <p>The conclusions from the Ukraine week that have been distributed to you which I drafted with the help of all of our colleagues who worked hard over the last several months actually in the realisation of this exercise, are fully in line with the excellent needs assessment mission report that President COX together with a series of experts, but moreover with a lot of concrete and tangible input from all the Ukrainian interlocutors has managed to identify and define in exactly 52 recommendations, where I think in such a way that he has ensured an effective ownership of this process. This is a joint exercise.</p>

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ (EPP, HR), Chair of the EP delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, What the European Parliament can contribute is to the strengthening of the role of the committees in Verkhovna Rada. Both in the legislative process and the oversight of the executive, where creating an informal network of EP and Verkhovna Rada committee chairs and facilitating bilateral relations between the respective committee chairs of the two institutions can be an idea.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ (EPP, HR), Chair of the EP delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, If there's one real power of this house that is the adoption of the EU budget. And I think this very structured, complex, carefully, deadlined if I may say procedures can be very helpful not only to Ukraine but to national parliaments, because it can also prepare you a little bit for all the other aspects of your future alignment with the exercise of the economic government, with the European Semester.

SOUNDBITE (English), Andrej PLENKOVIĆ (EPP, HR), Chair of the EP delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, we will try to find adequate modalities with the EP how to have you (referring to former EP P resident Pat COX) involved and included in the follow-up of our activities, perhaps the best way would be when we find a suitable date that convenes to you and me that we go jointly to Kiev, that we prepare in the meantime with the help of our colleagues, and also in the line of the new administrative cooperation agreement some sort of road map, a realistic road map, how we could with the agreement of President GROYSMAN see when the concrete activities should be unfolded.

SOUNDBIT (English), Ostap SEMERAK, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, We have done the analysis, we have discussed the report, but so far we have not created an action plan. We don't have exact concrete steps to follow, and I hope that the EP and the mission of the EP should be continued, the task of their work should be a bit different and I am very pleased that Mr President (former EP President COX) has expressed his desire to continue his work in Ukraine, and we should support his position very much.

SOUNDBIT (English), Ostap SEMERAK, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee, I hope that the next time we meet we will discuss not the recomendations, what to change, but the concrete results, the success of our new parliament and we will look back at the old Rada only as a moment of the past.

Signature of an "Administrative cooperation agreement" between the European and Ukrainian Parliament's Secretariats by Klaus WELLE, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, and Volodymyr SLYSHYNSKYI, First Deputy Head of the Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada (7 shots)