Zelenskyy calls for EU to 'do more' for Ukraine after bloc refuses immediate membership
The European Union should "do more" for Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday, after European leaders poured cold water on the country quickly joining the bloc.
"We need to go harder. This is not what we expect," Ukraine's president said in a video on his Telegram channel.
"The decisions of politicians must coincide with the mood of their people, the people of Europe (...) The European Union must do more for us, for Ukraine."
Zelenskyy demanded last week that Brussels create a "new special procedure" to grant Ukraine "immediate membership".
His appeal on Thursday came a day after EU leaders ruled out such an immediate membership but acknowledged Ukraine's "European aspirations" at a summit in Versailles. They tasked the European Commission to draft an "opinion" on the request — a process that can take weeks.
Once the opinion is released, European leaders then have to unanimously decide to grant "candidate status" for Ukraine which is then followed by lengthy negotiations with the candidate expected to implement reforms to bring it in line with the rest of the bloc.
Dutch Prime Minister stressed at the summit that there is "no fast track" to membership but that "we want to work intensively with Ukraine".
French President Emmanuel Macron said the EU must "send a strong signal to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in this hour of need".
He had said a day earlier during an event with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Paris that "the subject of the enlargement of the European Union cannot be looked at on a case by case basis."
"The question of Ukraine cannot be separated from that of all the Eastern partners and partnerships, with the exception of Belarus, which has chosen a different path, and the Western Balkans.
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