You're reading: EC labels alleged removal of Tymoshenko’s issue from EU-Ukraine agenda as ‘paid advertisement’

Brussels – The spokesman for the European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule, Peter Stano, has described reports about the alleged removal of the issue of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from the agenda of the EU-Ukraine relations a 'paid advertisement' and 'misleading information.' 

“I have to say that an article that was apparently placed in the Ukrainian newspaper Segodnya is either a paid advertisement or something [like that]. It is full of spin and incorrect assessments, misleading assessment about the EU-Ukraine relations, about the preparation of the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius this November, and about the preparation for the signature of the Association Agreement,” he said at the European Commission’s press briefing in Brussels on Monday, responding to a question by an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent.

According to Stano, similar incorrect and misleading assessments of EU-Ukraine relations have appeared in other Ukrainian media outlets.

“So let me set it straight: What Commissioner Fule and [Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council] Secretary [Andriy] Kliuyev discussed last week here in Brussels in length was the progress in relations between the EU and Ukraine. But this also included other outstanding issues, including the case of Yulia Tymoshenko,” the spokesman said.

In this connection, he noted that Fule and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton last month said that the EU looked forward to Ukraine addressing without further delay the outstanding cases of selective justice, and preventing any recurrence of selective justice in the future through comprehensive judicial reform fully in line with European standards. The EU officials also expected Kyiv to fully implement the December conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council and the joint statement of the EU-Ukraine summit.

“Nothing has changed on this,” Stano said.