Polish representative: Ukrainians should focus on reforms, rather than Bandera
Member of European Parliament Pawel Zalewski of Poland.

Polish representative: Ukrainians should focus on reforms, rather than Bandera

Mar 13, 2010 at 15:48 | Interfax-Ukraine
The question of conferring the Hero of Ukraine title to Stepan Bandera, one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), is not a main clause in the European Parliament's resolution on the situation in Ukraine, MEP Pawel Zalewski of Poland, one of the initiators of the resolution on Ukraine, has said in an interview with the Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly) newspaper.

He said that the resolution's main goal was to prompt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to maintain cooperation with the EU and conduct the necessary reforms.

"We should not focus on the issue of Bandera at all - it's only one of the resolution's clauses. I emphasize that Ukrainians and the Ukrainian government should pay more attention to reforms. We, in fact, expected them from the previous government, but this, unfortunately, did not happen. Ukraine has lost the last five years in the context of economic reforms. So a main signal in the resolution is to stimulate Mr. Yanukovych to actively cooperate with the EU and conduct the necessary reforms," Zalewski said.

He said that the question of economic reforms was more important for most Ukrainians than ideological confrontation over Bandera's personality.

"The question of Bandera is an isolated problem to some extent, because it's more important for most Ukrainians that the government and the president conduct reforms and make your big country and big nation with huge potential a really European one. And this depends only on the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian government. Our resolution proposes options for Ukraine to become an EU member," Zalewski said.

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