Chancellor Merkel reflecting on her visit to Kyiv – EuroActive – NRCU
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27-06-2012 11:36 Chancellor Merkel reflecting on her visit to Kyiv – EuroActive
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reflecting on her trip to Kyiv, and still is likely to visit the Ukrainian capital if Germany reaches EURO 2012 finals, according to the European edition EuroActive.de.
The EU information website notes that at this “sensitive stage” of Ukrainian relationship with Germany and the EU, Pavlo Klimkin is arriving in Berlin as the new ambassador, whom Angela Merkel “knows personally” and who before his appointment acted as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. The online edition reminds that the post of the ambassador of the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Berlin has been vacant for a good six months. The previous ambassador, Natalia Zarudna, at the end of last year was moved to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Kazakhstan. EuroActive.de says that Pavlo Klimkin should have left for Berlin at the beginning of this year, but the time to change the ambassador to a large extent depended on the negotiations between Ukraine and EU on the Association Agreement, in which Klimkin was active as a deputy minister. “German Chancellor Angela Merkel knows Klimkin personally. He last visited the Federal Chancellery in April 2011. Even then, the German government signaled him that Merkel was not quite sure of visiting matches of the European Football Championship in Ukraine, given the allegations of harassment of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and the situation with human rights in Ukraine. And if the attitude towards Tymoshenko is not improved, then Ms Merkel will not sit next to President Yanukovych in the VIP box,” the edition notes. EuroActive.de concludes that Merkel could still come to Kyiv and attend the stadium, if the German national team will play in the finals. The Chancellor herself told the German players about that, when she congratulated them on the victory over Greece. The Chancellor promised the players that on July 1 “under certain conditions” she will personally come to the Ukrainian stadium for the final match. However, the European edition says, this decision can not be made public until Thursday, June 28, when the results of the semi-final match between Germany and Italy are known. “The Federal Press Conference Association (BPK) in the government quarter of Berlin learned that evidently none of the ministers of the Federal Government is going to visit Ukraine,” EuroActive.de said.