“Together, we are Europe”: lecture by the EU Ambassador Matti Maasikas to Kyiv-Mohyla students

“Together, we are Europe”: Today, Kyiv-Mohyla students had an opportunity to listen to a lecture by HE Ambassador Matti Maasikas, Head of the European Union Delegation to Ukraine

The lecture was devoted to EU-Ukraine relations since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion.

Matti Maasikas, who has been heading the EU Delegation to Ukraine since September 2019, emphasized that a full-scale war in the middle of Europe affects all Europeans, including EU citizens. That is why the European Union, its Member States and Financial Institutions expediently put their decision-making mechanisms for financial, humanitarian and military support to Ukraine on a war footing. As of today, the overall support has totalled around EUR 67 billion.

“Ukraine has redynamised the EU in several senses. Together, we have risen to the challenge of Russia’s full-scale war. The EU – a peace project – is helping to arm a neighbouring country. The EU started acting geopolitically: history asked us to choose a side, and we did.”

His Excellency described the dynamism of the European Union’s relations with Ukraine, with a view notably to the candidate status that was granted to the country in 2022.

He looked back at previous enlargement processes and spoke about political, institutional and economic aspects of EU accession.

Matti Maasikas, an alumnus of the department of history of the renowned University of Tartu, welcomed the valuable partnership of the two oldest universities in Eastern Europe – Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and Tartu.

NAUKMA students were interested in opportunities for post-war cooperation between the EU and Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s reform performance and EU domestic developments.

The EU Delegation was one of the first diplomatic missions that resumed operations in Kyiv after Russia had launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine – it returned as early as April 2022.

The vast majority of EU projects in Ukraine are now related to the war response in one way or another, and those launched before February 24, 2022, have redirected their budgets to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian aggression.

Nonetheless, with the future in mind, the EU is continuing Ukraine’s reform agenda and implementing programmes for students, scientists, and young professionals in Ukraine. These projects not only provide them with support, knowledge and networking opportunities, but also help them tap into the common scientific space of Europe and contribute to Ukraine’s organic integration with the EU.

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