The European Union will keep backing Ukraine and its bid to joint the 27-nation bloc, economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday, two days after the EU executive recommended candidate status for the war-ravaged former Soviet republic.
"We are ready to keep supporting Ukraine, which could become a formal EU candidate, as the Commission proposed on Friday," Gentiloni told a conference at the ISPI think-tank in Rome.
Gentiloni on Friday hailed the European Commission's backing of candidate status for Ukraine, calling it "an historic step".
EU leaders are expected to approve Ukraine’s candidate status at a summit on Wednesday and Thursday, but with strict conditions attached on democracy, rule of law, governance and anti-corruption standards.
