You're reading: Teixeira to serve as EU ambassador to Ukraine until Tombinski’s arrival

Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira will serve as the head of the European Union's Delegation to Ukraine until a new ambassador, Jan Tombinski, arrives in Ukraine.

“The EU Delegation to Ukraine confirms that Ambassador Pinto Teixeira continues to fulfill the duties and exercise the powers (of the head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine). His term of office will end only when the new head of the delegation, Ambassador Jan Tombinski, arrives in Ukraine. This planned rotation is expected in late summer,” press attaché at the EU Delegation David Stulik said.

“Therefore, the recent media reports that the tenure of Ambassador Pinto Teixeira has ended are not true,” he added.

Stulik noted that High Representative for European Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton published her decision to appoint new heads of missions in different EU countries on May 16, 2012. These appointments were announced as a plan for the upcoming rotation, and as an immediate replacement of the EU ambassadors, the EU Delegation’s press attaché said.

As reported, on June 17, Teixeira was not let into the hospital to visit convicted former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko.

“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 their refusal,” Teixeira told reporters outside the hospital building.

On May 16, EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton decided that Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira would be replaced by Jan Tombinski as Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine. Polish Ambassador to the EU Jan Tombinski will take up the post of the head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine in September.