‘Ukraine is part of the house of Europe’ – German foreign minister

BERLIN (Reuters) – Joining the European Union is not something that can be done in a couple of months but Ukraine is part of the “house of Europe” in which it is welcome, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Monday.

“And it’s not that we woke up in a different world just now because the European Union has always been a house whose doors were open,” Baerbock said in a joint press conference after a meeting with her Slovenian counterpart Anze Logar.

She added Ukraine’s accession would not signal that the EU wished to partition it off from Russia but would reflect a desire to fulfil the wish of many Ukrainians to join. The EU was not the only Europe-wide body seeking to preserve peace and security that countries could join, she added.

(Reporting by Zuzanna Szymanska and Thomas Escritt)