The referendum on Britain's exit from the EU mixed the cards for President Poroshenko, who visited Brussels for a short visit to meet with the leadership of the European Union on the sidelines of the two-day EU summit that opened on Tuesday, Kommersant reports.
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The publication notes that Petro Poroshenko’s preparations for his trip to Brussels entered an active phase last week, when he visited Paris and held negotiations with French President Francois Hollande.
“However, the sensational results of the referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union mixed the cards for the Ukrainian leader, who once again hoped to use his visit to Brussels to demonstrate that the process of European integration of Ukraine has not yet lost its prospects, while pressure on Russia from the EU will continue ”, the publication points out.
At the same time, on the eve of the trip, the Ukrainian president, commenting on the results of the British referendum, expressed the hope that “the European integration project will not succumb to the pressure of Eurosceptics,” and the head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry even spoke about the serious role of Ukraine in overcoming the trials that Europe faces.
“However, having already arrived in Brussels, President Poroshenko was faced with the fact that his European interlocutors were preoccupied with the question of how to react to the results of Brexit and build relations with Great Britain,” the newspaper writes. “Given the need for urgent unplanned consultations, the program of Mr. Poroshenko’s visit was constantly redrawn, and the discussion turned out to be crumpled. The meeting with the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz was postponed until the evening. Late on Monday evening we also had to hold a mini-summit, which was initially planned in the format of a “working breakfast”.
At the same time, Kommersant draws attention, a press conference was not held following the results of the mini-summit of the Ukraine-EU mini-summit.