Ukraine / Foreign Minister: Ukraine’s membership in the EU is in the interest of Poles
Poland supports Ukraine’s membership in the European Union and NATO and is one of its biggest advocates, said Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrij Sybiha in an interview for the Ukrainska Pravda portal. Ukraine’s membership in the European Union is in the interest of Poles, the minister assessed.
“We have the support of the Polish authorities for Ukraine’s membership in the European Union and NATO. It is one of our biggest advocates,” said Sybiha in the interview published on Tuesday.
When asked specifically about the opinion of Poland’s president Karol Nawrocki on this issue, he replied: “I have no grounds to claim” that he does not support such a position.
“I also believe that Ukraine’s membership in the European Union is in the interest of Poles, and in Poland there is an awareness of this fact,” assessed the head of Ukrainian diplomacy in the interview published on Tuesday.
“The entire philosophy of the European Union is based on compromises. The states that can now put forward their demands have also gone through this process and know that in the end their accession was beneficial both for them and for the old members of the European Union. That is why I am optimistic that it will be possible to find compromise solutions,” emphasized Sybiha.
According to the minister, in Ukrainian society and among experts the opinion often appears that even without Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban there will always be another state that will try to block Ukraine’s accession to the European Union. Sybiha stressed that the risk exists, and some partners openly tell Kyiv about it.
“Our negotiations will certainly not be easy. Some partners tell us this directly – they will be linked to their internal political processes,” he noted.
Sybiha emphasized that Ukraine has recently achieved significant progress with Poland on extremely sensitive historical issues.
The foreign minister said that Ukraine’s president Wołodymyr Zełenski supported the unrestricted conduct of exhumations of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on the territory of Ukraine. He added that in practice this decision is already being implemented and permits are being issued by both sides.
“There cannot, should not and will not be any obstacles to exhumations. Because all victims deserve respect and remembrance,” he stressed.
Answering the question of whether historical issues may lose significance in relations with Warsaw, Sybiha explained that progress is already visible. In his view, a sincere dialogue and a readiness to listen to the needs of the other side remain of key importance.
For many years, Poland and Ukraine have been divided by the memory of the role of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which in 1943-1945 carried out a genocidal ethnic cleansing of nearly 100,000 Polish men, women and children. Since the spring of 2017, there had been a dispute over the ban on searches and exhumations of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on the territory of Ukraine, introduced by the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. The ban was issued after the dismantling of a UPA monument in Hruszowice in April 2017.
The decision to lift it was announced at the end of November 2024 during a press conference by the foreign ministers of Poland and Ukraine, Radosław Sikorski and Andrij Sybiha.
Zełenski during a meeting with Nawrocki in Warsaw at the end of December declared his readiness to accelerate exhumations in Volhynia. The Polish president had earlier said that this is a key issue for him.
On Sunday, the president of Ukraine stated that his country would be fully technically ready in 2027 to become a member of the European Union. (28.01.26)
