Concrete path for Ukraine's accession to NATO should be laid at Vilnius summit - British MP

That’s according to Deputy Speaker of the UK House of Commons, Sir Roger Gale, who spoke with Guildhall, Ukrinform reports.

“I think both in the interests of NATO and in the interests of Ukraine, there needs to be a clear pathway towards Ukrainian membership of NATO. I don't think it's something that can or should happen overnight. And while we're in the middle of the war is probably not the best time to take this right through to its conclusion. But I would hope and expect that once Ukraine has won the war with the support of NATO countries, then it will be possible to admit Ukraine to full membership,” said the lawmaker.

“There needs to be a clear pathway to membership. Membership of NATO, of course, comes with a cost. At the moment, for very obvious reasons, all of the resources that Ukraine has are going to have to go into, first of all, winning the war, and then Secondly, with the help of the international community, and you'll know that the Prime Minister was hosting a conference in London about this today, the rebuilding of the country, which is going to cost billions. The priorities, I think, have to be to get Ukraine, first of all, secure and then rebuilt. But there needs to be also, I think in tandem with that, a clear pathway to Ukrainian membership of NATO,” summed up the Vice Speaker of the British Parliament.

Earlier, German lawmaker with the CDU/CSU, Roderich Kiesewetter, called for giving Ukraine an MAP and a timetable for joining NATO as early as at the Vilnius summit. He said that countries supporting Ukraine should stop only expressing regret in response to Russia’s war crimes as a response involving force is needed. Such a response, he said, should be the NATO membership  plan for Ukraine and the timetable for joining the alliance.

Also, Swedish MP Magnus Jakobsson, a member of the coalition's Christian Democratic Party, said that the NATO summit in Vilnius should not end with just words as Ukraine should receive guarantees that it will become a member of the alliance after winning the war.

In turn, a member of the European Parliament from Estonia, ex-Commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, Lieutenant-General Riho Terras, said that the best outcome of the NATO summit in Vilnius would be to invite Ukraine to the alliance and provide a specific plan for obtaining membership. Meanwhile, in Europe, a tough debate continues on the issue.

The upcoming NATO summit in the capital of the Republic of Lithuania Vilnius will take place on July 11-12.