Today's Date:

Meeting of the Weimar Triangle Foreign Ministers, interview given by Philippe Douste-Blazy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the French press (excerpts)

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EU/UKRAINE

Q. – (on EU-Ukraine relations)

THE MINISTER – (...) As regards what's most important: relations between the European Union and Ukraine, I took the liberty of saying that a successful Ukrainian transition is in our interest. That we have to help Ukraine carry out her reforms by providing appropriate technical assistance under the European Union-Ukraine Action Plan. And here, as discussed during the preparation of the Weimar summit, in fact on Poland's initiative, France is very much in favour of trilateral cooperation. France proposes the establishment of a "task force" made up of points of contact in each of our capitals. Liaising with our embassies in Kiev, these would be tasked with identifying the priority projects in the Action Plan framework, helping Ukraine define her needs and coordinating, where appropriate, our three countries' bids in response to the future Commission invitations to tender. Moreover, some bids could be bi- or trilateral. And if this idea, which I presented to both the Polish Prime minister and my colleague Joschka Fischer, is accepted, we should now give our respective administrations instructions to set up this task force.

We also wish to expedite the conclusion of a visa facilitation agreement between the European Union and Ukraine. (...)./.