“In Ukraine we have a strong connection between the European integration and the security situation. If Ukraine does not win against Russia all the reforms to the European integration make no sense. And they make no sense not only for Ukraine but also for other countries which are on the same way on the accession, such as Moldova, Georgia and others. This would be a very big hit for these countries if Ukraine does not manage to win the war.”

Leo Litra, Senior Research Fellow at the New Europe Center, took part in “EUROPE CONFERENCE: European choices in times of crisis” on May 30. During his online speech the expert stated that it is very important for Ukraine to have a merit-based approach. “In Ukraine people are afraid that making these sometimes painful but necessary reforms and not having an end result would actually damage the process overall and the kind of perception of how this process is handled”, Leo Litra said.

“I want to underline about the EU integration is that from our perspective, the EU integration and accession of Ukraine towards the EU cannot be successful if there is no security track in place. From our perspective, if Ukraine joins the EU in some five, seven years, and if we don’t have security guarantees, even NATO or bilateral security guarantees, not the agreements which we have today, that would be a very dangerous situation for Ukraine, because a war can start again in every moment and Europe will be even under greater pressure than now. So NATO or bilateral security guarantees are very important now”, the expert added.

The event was organized by Think Tank Europa and Gorrissen Federspiel, Denmark.