Teixeira not allowed to visit Tymoshenko

Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira has said that could not meet with former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is undergoing treatment at Ukrzaliznytsia's Central Clinical Hospital No.5 in Kharkiv, despite there being a written appeal by the former prime minister with a request for the meeting.

"A month ago, the government said that it is necessary for her [Yulia Tymoshenko] to invite me. She invited me on May 15, but the last time they [government officials] told me that I was no longer the EU ambassador to Ukraine. I'm still here and I'll be here until September [holding the post of the EU's ambassador to Ukraine], so I do not understand the reasons for refusal," he told reporters outside the building of the hospital on Sunday.

He said that he could only climb the 9th floor of the hospital and talk to security guards near Tymoshenko's ward. The EU ambassador said that security guards told him that a letter to the ex-prime minister must be passed to the Kachanivska penal colony, in which the ex-prime minister is serving her sentence and where she was held before hospitalization.

Teixeira also noted that he could not get permission to meet with the former prime minister since her arrest, for almost ten months, while other members of the European Parliament are given such permission.

On May 16, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton decided that Teixeira would be replaced by Jan Tombinski as Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine.