The center-right group in the European Parliament, the European People's Party, has adopted a position paper calling on NATO to lay the groundwork for Kyiv's entry into the alliance in the long term..

“The EPP group expects the upcoming summits in Vilnius and Washington to pave the way for extending an invitation to Ukraine to join NATO, and the accession process will begin at the end of the war and be completed as quickly as possible,” the document says..

According to the EPP, which is the largest pan-European party association in Europe, this step will strengthen the Alliance and will be a further step towards sustainable peace in Europe.”.

The authors of the declaration emphasize that previous security decisions for Ukraine - from the Budapest Memorandum to the conclusions of the Bucharest NATO summit - have not prevented a full-scale Russian invasion, and the country's permanent presence in the so-called gray zone will only encourage Moscow to resort to aggression again in the future..

According to EPP members, an invitation for Ukraine to become a member of NATO will send a strong signal to Putin and the war hawks in the Kremlin, as well as an argument for them to finally understand that Ukraine is no longer within their influence..

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The head of the EPP group, Manfred Weber, said that the alliance should prepare for the prospect of Ukraine's membership in it as soon as the war ends..

“We cannot imagine Ukraine outside the post-war European security architecture,” Weber said, adding that “at the NATO summits in Vilnius in July and Washington next year, we must correct the mistakes of the past.”.

Ukraine applied for accelerated accession to NATO last September. Kyiv insists that at the July meeting of the alliance in Lithuania, the allies make a concrete public gesture regarding Ukraine's approach to membership.

At the same time, Washington and some Western European capitals prefer to avoid discussions about membership and urge to focus on practical assistance to Ukraine in the fight against the aggressor.. However, some NATO eastern allies want Ukraine to receive a meaningful signal in Vilnius and build closer institutional ties between the Alliance and Kiev..

Will the North Atlantic Alliance respond to Ukraine with consent Read the article by Vladimir Kravchenko "