Ukraine: The Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko has said he sees his country "in a united Europe in the not-too-distant future".
During a visit to Berlin yesterday, Mr Yushchenko thanked German chancellor Gerhard Schröder for his support during the Orange revolution and called for EU accession assistance from Germany, which he called "the unification motor of Europe" and "the number one for us in Europe".
"The world will see another Ukraine, a healthy, strong well-off, democratic Ukraine," Mr Yushchenko told the Bundestag, following in the footsteps of Reagan, Gorbachev and Putin. "In defending Ukraine's freedom, Europe has made its choice. I see Ukraine in a united Europe in the not-too-distant future."
Mr Yushchenko said Ukraine's popular uprising against rigged elections before Christmas was the latest in a "continuous chain of events" that started with the fall of the Berlin Wall that once ran a few metres from the Reichstag building. In his speech, he laid down his "road map" for the coming years: to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the autumn and adopt the reforms listed in the action plan signed with the European Commission last month with a view to establishing associate membership of the EU in 2007.
"Ukraine is a European country and should be part of a united Europe," he said, backing his argument with a quotation from Germany's first post-war Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer.
"The Soviet Union contains European states, why should they not be in a United States of Europe?"
Earlier Chancellor Schröder told Mr Yushchenko that Germany would bring a new dynamic to bilateral relations to "bring Ukraine into the European structures".
Asked about a timeframe for EU negotiations, however, Mr Schröder said: "It would be completely wrong to deal outside the European Council." Instead he announced plans for a new working group to develop joint economic projects.