Verkhovna Rada Chairman Andriy Parubiy has said that the adoption by the Ukrainian parliament in 2017 of the decision on membership in the alliance was the key impetus to NATO’s decision to grant Ukraine the status of an aspirant country.
“Good news. Congratulations to everyone! Ukraine has been granted the status of an aspirant country for joining NATO! I am sincerely happy and proud that the Verkhovna Rada decision of June 8, 2017, which I initiated, regarding Ukraine’s membership of NATO as Ukraine’s strategic goal has become a key impetus for this. Step by step, we are irreversibly moving to our goal. Ukraine will be a NATO member,” Parubiy wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday.
Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, in turn, said after negotiations with NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller that the alliance had officially recognized Ukraine’s aspiration for gaining full membership in this organization, securing its status as an aspirant country.
“It’s a long way from recognition of ambitions to membership, and it consists primarily of internal work, but we can successfully pass it if we change the country purposefully in line with democratic, social, economic, political and, of course, military principles and approaches of NATO,” Klympush-Tsintsadze was quoted as saying by her press service on Saturday.
It was reported on March 10 that NATO had recognized Ukraine’s aspirant country status.
“Currently, four partner countries have declared their aspirations to NATO membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Ukraine,” reads a report posted on NATO’s website.
The status of “aspirant country” means that countries that declared their aspirations to accede to the alliance are first invited to join an intensified dialogue with NATO on reforms needed for this.
On June 8, 2017, the Verkhovna Rada voted in favor of forging deeper ties with NATO with the aim of gaining membership in this organization as a central goal of Ukraine’s foreign policy. The relevant bill, No. 6470, which amends several legislative acts regulating Ukraine’s foreign policy, was supported by 276 deputies.
The document envisages amendments to the July 1, 2010 law on the main principles of Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy and the June 19, 2003 law on the main principles of the country’s national security.
