Kateryna Zarembo became the invited speaker of the event “COVID-19: What do Eastern Partnership countries make out of EU support?”, organized by TEPSA (The Trans European Policy Studies Association).

Some key points:

• The support for EU membership has dropped in Ukraine for some reason. The poll was conducted by Kyiv international institute of sociology. The results which were presented in the beginning of June are that 46% of Ukraine support the EU membership, in contrast to figure that we had last year when 60% supported it. So we have a drop of around 15%.
• When Ukrainian institute asked which countries can help Ukraine to fight the coronavirus, 34% of Ukrainians said that they expect China to help and only 10 % said that the help can be expected from the EU and 10% – from the US.
• For some reason the EU image was damaged, despite the fact that the EU has been the biggest helper and donor in time of the corona crisis. There was over billion of micro financial assistance and this does not include individual contributions from member states. This is the story which Ukraine society is apparently not aware of.
• The statistics also shows that Ukraine is definitely not the source of pandemic and not the coronavirus hub. Yet the fact that there are travel restrictions to the EU is definitely going to affect the Ukraine-EU relations in terms of social view. The visa-free regime was one of the key achievements in EU-Ukraine relations so far, which could be perceived by the average Ukrainian, so to say.
• Trust remains the most important component in Ukraine-EU relations: the trust towards Ukraine as a reliable neighbor, the trust to the EU, which can deliver upon its commitments and the bilateral trust in each and every aspect of cooperation, which has to continue, despite everything.