Support for Ukraine, accession talks: Latvian president says EU will maintain unity

Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has said he believes that the European Union will maintain unity not only in the matter of supporting Ukraine, but also in the matter of launching accession negotiations.

Rinkevics said this at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

He noted that the European Union is a community of 27 democratic countries whose representatives come from different political parties and have different political views.

"Sometimes we really have difficult discussions at the level of the European Union, as well as at the level of NATO. Sometimes you have to spend a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately, it is somewhat annoying when we all have to make a certain decision quickly, because Ukraine needs this support, and the political process is long. But in the end, these decisions are made despite difficulties and despite the fact that there are many aspects," Rinkevics said.

According to him, he has worked in the diplomatic field for 12 years and in the first year alone he thought after each meeting, "Well, that's it, life ends there, we haven't reached anything," but then it was possible to reach a common opinion.

"Now I am more optimistic about it. Yes, we may need more discussions, more time. But all the same, the unity [of the EU] will remain, we will be able to make the necessary decisions not only in terms of support for Ukraine, but also in terms of the negotiation process with Ukraine," he said.

Rinkevics also predicted that, perhaps, there will be "certain nuances and we will have to work a little more with our Ukrainian colleagues on how to adopt certain aspects regarding different countries."