The public discussion “Why Europe needs an open Ukraine?” took place in Barcelona
On April 26 the public discussion “Why Europe needs an open Ukraine?” took place in Barcelona. The roundtable was organized by Barcelona Center of International Affairs (CIDOB, Spain), Europe Without Barriers (Ukraine) and Economic Forum (Poland) with support of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.
Javier Solana, Honorary Director of CIDOB, expressed his and his colleague’s joint “frustration” over the situation in Ukraine. He stressed that they always try to be supportive and helpful to Ukraine. However, despite the high expectations, Ukraine didn’t manage to keep the role of a “Flagman of Democratic and Economic transfrormations in Eastern Europe” and to consolidate the achievements and maintain the interability of the Path to European integration. He also pointed out that Ukraine still has chances to advance in the process of European integration if it would draw proper lessons from the past and current events.
The report “Open Ukraine. Changing Course towards a European Future”, conducted by Polish partners from the Economic Forum (ISW), was presented by Maria Shmelova, Senior Coordinator for Ukraine at ISW.
Civic Initiative “Europe without Barriers” presented key findings of the survey, carried out among different social representatives and professional groups of Ukrainian diaspora in Spain. The main outcomes of the research verified the fact that mostly Ukrainians look for the legal mechanisms of living and working in Spain. As for the estimations of Iryna Sushko, head of Civic Initiative “Europe without Barriers”, the times of domination of certain illegal work forces have passed. Also she stressed that majority of polled Ukrainians do not consider the possibilities of working or staying illegally in Spain as an acceptable option.
Civic Initiative “Europe without Barriers”
Maryana Kuzyo, maryana.kuzio@gmail.com
Iryna Sushko, iryna_sushko@ukr.net
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The essential role of the European Program lies in promotion of Ukraine’s European integration, combining external pressure of the EU with the domestic one of the Ukrainian civil society, and thus contributing to promotion of open society values in Ukraine.
