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First meeting in European Political Community format to be held in Czech Republic — Macron

The European Political Community will allow the leaders of the European continent, from Iceland to Ukraine, to discuss defense and security, energy, infrastructure, sanitary crisis, economy, the French President noted

PARIS, June 24. /TASS/. The first meeting in the format of the European Political Community will be held in the Czech Republic, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday at a press conference following the EU summit in Brussels.

"Based on Thursday night's discussion, a broad consensus was reached on this topic," Macron, whose speech was livestreamed on the Elysee Palace's Twitter, said, "The European Political Community is not a substitute for the EU enlargement process. It will allow the leaders of the European continent, from Iceland to Ukraine, to discuss defense and security, energy, infrastructure, sanitary crisis, economy," the French leader pointed out.

"We have agreed to prepare the first meeting of this community in the Czech Republic in the framework of the Czech EU presidency," he said, without specifying when the meeting could take place.

On June 17, the European Commission recommended the EU summit to grant Ukraine and Moldova membership candidate status. On Tuesday, the EU member states reached a political consensus at the General Affairs Council meeting to grant candidate status to Ukraine at the June 23-24 summit.

As French Foreign Minister Clement Beaune earlier warned, the process of Ukraine's accession to the European Union may take up to 15-20 years. According to him, within the framework of President Macron's initiative to create the European Political Community, Ukrainians would be able to access part of the European funds to rebuild the country after the conflict while waiting for admission to the EU.

In response to the French proposal, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said on Twitter that Kiev does not need "surrogates for candidate status." According to him, such proposals "demonstrate a second-rate attitude towards Ukraine and hurt the Ukrainians’ feelings".

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EU Czech Republic Emmanuel Macron

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