Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said on Tuesday 31 May that granting candidate country status to Ukraine did not have the approval of the ‘big’ EU member states, apart from his own.
“Candidate country status is objected to by almost all the major EU countries, if not all, except Italy,” he explained after the EU summit. “Moving forward with candidate country status at this time is not something that can be expected, because of the opposition of these countries,” he added.
The statement of most major EU countries who stand against Ukraine's status as a candidate for membership in the association is meanness towards it, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik Radio on Wednesday, TASS reports.
"Well, this is mean to Ukraine, because all previous years, decades, and we now take the situation before 2014, that is, respectively, it is not ten years, it is more, they said exactly the opposite. They promised Ukraine membership every year, they said every year that 'now you are another half step, another half centimeter, another millimeter closer to the cherished goal'," the diplomat said, commenting on Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's statement that almost all major EU countries are against Ukraine's status as a candidate to the European Union.
Zakharova noted that "today the Italian Prime Minister is saying exactly what Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said in 2013, that Ukraine is not ready to become a member of the EU and start practical European integration". According to the diplomat, Yanukovych was "almost killed, kicked out, squeezed out of the political landscape" for these words back then, while the Italian prime minister, when making such statements, "does not fall out of the agenda in any way."
