By Martin Banks - 7th November 2008
I personally have high hopes that America’s international relations will become healthier and some of its policies less disruptive and divisive than has been the case
Ukraine's ambassador to the EU Andri Veselovsky
Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU says the election of Barack Obama will lead to further improvement in EU-US relations.
Andri Veselovsky said he hopes the administration, led by US president-elect Barack Obama, will lead to less “divisive” foreign policies than in the recent past.
Speaking to this website, Veselovsky, who has been in Brussels since April, said, “There is a lot of euphoria in Europe and around the world following Obama’s victory but I think it would be unwise to expect miracles from him.
“What I do expect is that relations between the EU and US will improve under an Obama presidency. I personally have high hopes that America’s international relations will become healthier and some of its policies less disruptive and divisive than has been the case.”
He added, “Obama has visited Ukraine in the past and, as such, will know something of our history and current problems. Hopefully, this will facilitate at least the initial stages of my country's relations with the US.”
Veselovsky, a former deputy foreign minister in Ukraine, told journalists that his countrymen should not be disheartened by recent opinion polls in Spain, which showed that only 58 per cent of those questioned supported Ukraine’s EU membership compared with 62 per cent who backed Croatia joining the EU club, despite growing concern that gang crime in Croatia is rampant.
It has also been reported that the majority of Germans oppose Ukraine’s membership of the EU.
The ambassador said, “A lot of countries do not really know what Ukraine is about but it is important, especially at a time of global financial crisis, that Ukrainian people do not feel unwanted.
In an informal briefing in Brussels, he also called for “stronger and better-crafted” stability pact rules for candidate countries and said progress had been made on the visa-free dialogue that his country is negotiating with the EU.
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