BRUSSELS, March 1 – Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called on the EU on Tuesday via video link to an emergency session of the European Parliament to “prove you’re with us” in Ukraine’s war with Russia, a day after Kyiv formally asked to join block.
MEPs, many wearing #standwithUkraine T-shirts with the Ukrainian flag and others wearing blue and yellow scarves or ribbons, applauded Zelensky.
“We are fighting to be equal members of Europe,” Zelensky said in Ukrainian in a speech translated into English by a translator who spoke through tears.
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“Prove that you are with us. Prove that you will not let us go. Prove that you are truly Europeans and then life will defeat death and light will defeat darkness,” he said. “The EU will be much stronger with us.”
Zelensky remained in Kyiv to unite his people against the invasion. As he spoke on Tuesday, a Russian armored column headed for the Ukrainian capital. Read more
The presidents of eight Central and Eastern European countries issued an open letter Monday calling on Ukraine to receive immediate EU candidate status and start formal membership talks. Read more
DIFFICULT TO JOIN THE EU
But Ukraine is aware that any membership process will be long and difficult, even if it manages to avoid falling back under Moscow’s rule after the war. Read more
Charles Michel, the president of the EU leaders, told the European Parliament after Zelensky’s speech that the bloc would have to seriously consider Ukraine’s “legal” request to join.
But he added: “It will be difficult, we know there are different views in Europe (for further enlargement).”
According to a draft text to be voted on later Tuesday, EU lawmakers are expected to stigmatize Russia as a “fraudulent state” and call on member states to agree on even tougher sanctions.
The EU has taken unprecedented steps, including funding arms supplies to Ukraine, since President Vladimir Putin launched a war against Russia’s neighbor last week. Read more
According to the draft resolution and the amendments, supported by the main parties of the assembly, the deputies will call for expanding the scope of sanctions and “aimed at strategic weakening of the Russian economy and industrial base, in particular the military-industrial complex.”
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “effectively makes Russia a fraudulent state,” lawmakers say.
While Putin “recalls the most horrific statements of 20th-century dictators,” Zelensky is “heroic,” the draft non-binding resolution said.
The European Parliament will also call on EU leaders to be tougher on oligarchs and officials close to the Russian leadership, to restrict oil and gas imports from Russia, to ban Russia and its ally Belarus entirely from the SWIFT banking system. and close all EU ports to Russian ships or ships bound for or from Russia.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation” aimed at freeing the country from leaders it describes as “neo-Nazis and drug addicts”.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine had led to the unification of the countries against Russia.
“If Putin sought to divide the European Union, weaken NATO and shatter the international community, he did the opposite,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament with a blue and yellow ribbon hanging from her jacket.
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Report by Phil Blankinsop, Bart Meyer, Jan Strupchevski; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Edited by Raisa Kasolowski and Gareth Jones
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