At a joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, Victor Yushchenko said in 2005 Ukraine had made much progress in its desire to integrate into the European Union, presidential press office informed.
“There has not been a more successful year for our EU integration,” he said. The President, however, noted that “when the country does not make any attempts to integrate into the EU for decades and plays European principles but does not follow them” it cannot achieve all it wants in one year.
The Head of State is convinced that the European Union and “our impartial politicians” consider the year 2005 to be the time “of Ukraine’s unique EU breakthrough.”
Commenting onsome positive results, Yushchenko said Ukraine had been recognized as market economy.
“We awakened the world’s interest in Ukraine and began to negotiate things we could not even think about twelve months ago,” he asserted.
The President thenopined that “Ukraine must understand that it is 90% responsible for deciding whether it will be in Europe.”
