Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) – On 6 October, the 22nd Ukraine-EU summit was held in Brussels, in which the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky, the President of the European Council C. Michel and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs J. Borrell took part. For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, the event was held in person.

During the summit, the parties discussed the following key issues of a bilateral nature.

1. Reforms in Ukraine and cooperation in the fight against coronavirus became the central themes of the summit. J. Borrell highly appreciated the efforts of V. Zelensky in the implementation of reforms and modernization of the country. At the same time, Brussels called on Kiev to accelerate the implementation of judicial reform and step up the fight against corruption.

A number of agreements were signed during the summit. In particular, the EU will provide Ukraine with 60 million euros to develop regional resilience to hybrid threats and the coronavirus pandemic, support civil society and facilitate the transition to a green economy. Also, the EC announced the allocation of 10 million euros of humanitarian aid to the East of Ukraine.

2. The situation in the Donbass. S. Michel highly appreciated the efforts of V. Zelensky aimed at preserving the territorial integrity of Ukraine and resolving the situation in Donbass. The European Union supported the Ukrainian initiative "Crimean Platform" - the creation of an international platform for discussing the problem of Crimea.

3. Economic integration of Ukraine into Europe. Brussels and Kiev discussed deepening sectoral integration and agreed to begin a joint assessment of the achievement of the Association Agreement goals in 2021. In the four years of the agreement, trade between the two parties has grown by 65%. The European Union announced the launch of a preliminary assessment mission regarding the signing of an industrial visa-free agreement.

In general, experts assess the meeting in Brussels as additional evidence of the EU’s “priority attention” to cooperation with Ukraine. Meanwhile, according to observers, the EU is not very pleased with the completeness of Ukraine’s fulfillment of all its obligations in terms of public administration reforms.