EU, Ukraine to attempt to defuse mutual distrust

BRUSSELS, April 24 (UPI) -- Officials of Ukraine and the European Union are preparing to meet to resolve a growing distrust between Kiev and the West.

The meeting in Kiev next week will be the first summit with the EU since separatists, aided by Russia, began a military conflict in eastern Ukraine.

EU officials have noted government economic and political reforms have not moved swiftly enough in Ukraine, a country eager to join the 28-member Western bloc. Ukrainian leaders are similarly dissatisfied, noting arguments within the EU over the effectiveness of trade sanctions against Russia and the slow pace of a Ukraine-EU trade pact are causing misgivings about a Ukrainian future as a distinctly Western country.

In an essay in the British newspaper the Guardian on Friday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko attempted to reinforce Ukraine's forward- and westward-looking new image, referring to his recent dismissal of a regional governor after influence-peddling charges as an example of Ukraine's willingness to adopt Western methods of government.

"The former system of governance in Ukraine, in which public officials and prominent businesspeople operated under the table and above the law, shut us off from the rest of Europe. For Europe, with all its existing problems and challenges, has codified a system of checks and balances and a system of laws. Europe represents Ukraine's future."

Poroshenko has pushed for a visa-free access system in which travelers can freely cross borders, as the EU has used within its own membership, but the plan has been delayed by Ukraine's lack of control of its eastern border. The EU has also declined to send a military force of peacekeepers, as Poroshenko has sought, to the area of combat. Only half the EU membership has ratified the trade agreement with Ukraine, announced in June 2014.

There is also fear that Ukraine, which has borrowed $3.22 billion from the EU to maintain its government, will fail in its economic reforms and provoke a new financial crisis.