You're reading: PACE deputy: It will take about 10 years for Ukraine to join EU

Kyiv/Strasbourg, June 23 (Interfax-Ukraine) – PACE deputy Tadeusz Iwinski has said that a speech and answers given by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych at a PACE session in Strasbourg were "well balanced."

"This was his third visit to the Council of Europe and his traditional speech. He already knows the Council of Europe quite well, and vice versa, the deputies know him. It was interesting, but frankly speaking, I have not heard anything new, because I’m monitoring the situation in Ukraine. This speech was an answer to those who does not face the Ukrainian issue every day," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine on Wednesday.

He said that some PACE members were interested in such sensitive issues as the possibility of Batkivschyna Party leader Yulia Tymoshenko to visit Europe at the invitation of the European People’s Party.

"But this is an opinion that exists among some members here at the PACE. This is not my opinion," Iwinski said.

"His answers were well balanced. His position was well balanced," he said.

"Of course, it was important that in his speech, Yanukovych said that Ukraine was committed to achieving the goal of becoming a part of the European family and wants to become an EU member. Poland considers Ukraine to be its strategic partner, and sometimes we have heard in the past that we are doing more for Ukraine than Ukraine is doing for itself. I think that it will take from five to ten years, about ten years, for Ukraine to become an EU member," he said.