EU promises "very positive report" on Ukraine's visa-free ambitions
Brussels (dpa) -- The European Union is set to issue a "very positive report" on Ukraine's progress towards achieving visa-free access to the bloc, a top official said Monday, fuelling hopes in Kiev that it will be granted the long-sought advantage next week.
The offer to remove visa requirements for short-term visits to the bloc has been used as an incentive by the EU to encourage reforms in its eastern neighbours.
Moldova last year became the first of the six former Soviet states in the EU's Eastern Partnership programme to be granted visa-free access for its citizens to Europe's Schengen area for up to 90 days.
Ukraine hopes to be next in line.
"Ukraine has complied with everything [that was] promised so we can enable this visa-free regime," Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Monday after talks with EU officials in Brussels. "We hope our European partners will have a positive decision ... on December 15."
The European Commission, the EU's executive, is expected to issue reports on the visa liberalization progress made by Ukraine and Georgia on that day.
The bloc's commissioner for neighbourhood relations, Johannes Hahn, said he was "pretty sure that we will have a very positive report" for Ukraine.
"But the final outcome I can't and I don't want to predict," he told journalists in Brussels.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned that there are still efforts to be made by Ukraine, "notably on anti-corruption" work. But she also welcomed the "progress" made by Kiev so far.
"We know how much [visa liberalization] is important for all the Ukrainian people," she added.
The country has been holding visa liberalization talks with the EU for more than seven years.
An update on Biden's visit from our News Desk:
A lawmaker from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s party says visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has given assurances of Washington’s full support “in financial terms and beyond” for Ukraine.
Parliamentary deputy Svitlana Zalyschuk said Biden made the remarks during a December 7 meeting with members of parliament, Poroshenko’s administration, and civic society.
After that meeting, Biden met with Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko and then went into private talks with Ukraine's president.
Biden was scheduled to meet later on December 7 with Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
On December 8, Biden is scheduled to deliver a highly anticipated speech to Ukraine’s parliament.
It is Biden’s fourth visit to Kyiv since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in March 2014 and gave its backing to pro-Kremlin separatists in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.
Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, Interfax, and UNIAN
Arrested Ukrainian Politician Korban Hospitalized With Chest Pains
A jailed Ukrainian politician, Hennadiy Korban, has been hospitalized with what his aides have described as chest pains.
Korban's press secretary Yevhenia Kravchuk said on December 7 that the leader the Ukrainian Union of Patriots party (UKROP) was rushed to a hospital in the city of Dnipropetrovsk overnight.
Kravchuk quoted Korban's lawyer, Yevhen Pashko, as saying that Korban was diagnosed with coronary artery disease.
The 45-year-old Korban was detained on October 31 on suspicion of kidnapping, embezzlement, and having ties with organized crime.
On November 6, Korban was placed under house arrest until December 31.
Korban, a former deputy governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, and his supporters insist that his arrest is politically motivated.
Korban's party, UKROP, was officially registered in September 2014.
With reporting by UNIAN
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
