today marks a very Bleak anniversary it's three years of war and destruction three years of Senseless human tragedies but also three years of unbelievable courage incredible resilience and remarkable bravery from the Ukrainian people all of the Ukrainian people and I speak on behalf of all my college when I express here today dear Dennis our deepest and most sincere admiration admiration for how you continue to resist to Russia's attack admiration also for all that you have achieved in midst of this atrocious war and absolute chaos all the reforms that you have already passed heavy reforms difficult
reforms while you're fighting a war and the efforts you are undertaking to join our Union we are deeply impressed by what you are delivering at lightning speed and we will continue to support you on that path towards the European union membership any way possible our commitment to Ukraine is and will remain unwavering what is at stake is not only Ukraine's right to exist as a free Nation but also the future of our European continent our message is is very clear we support all diplomatic efforts that include you we endorse negotiations that lead to a just
and Lasting peace and we will back a peace agreement that takes into account your interests and in the same ve our position towards Russia is equally Rock Solid we will continue to intensify pressure against Russia and its War Machine through our unprecedented economic sanctions and we will continue to hold Russia responsible and accountable for the many crimes it has committed we will not forget buta I personally will never forget buta I was there days after the mass killing and I remember we met there for the first time we will never forget Mario Paul and so
many other atrocities you Ukraine can count on us and today you have here my college in ke with you we will now discuss all the steps we are taking to shape our common future first of course we will look at the accession to the European Union we are working hard together to open negotiations on clusters in the first half of 2025 and we are already integrating Ukraine into the eu's internal Market an important step forward so that your efforts to join our Union are already rewarded this year as an example uh the integration of Ukraine
for example into the European Union's Rome like at home specifically for the young people they love it always when we finally make it um but also the early EU market accession for Ukrainian Industrial Products so that we open already sectors of the single market for your products to come to the single Market the growth plan that we have together second we also want to boost our cooperation on defense and here it's the other way around we can learn a lot from you Ukraine has a highly Innovative and thriving defense industry it's impressive to see how
fast you have learned the impressive startups you have with young people who are producing for example own cheaper faster and more intelligent so we are learning from you and therefore we will increase our support through the EU defense Innovation office that we have in ke and work on integrating the Ukrainian defense industry into the European Defense ecosystem but this also really means that our industry is coming to Ukraine to learn from the Ukrainian defense industry third we will hold Russia accountable as there won't be any lasting peace without Justice and this is why it is
so important that we have made decisive progress in establishing a special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine it has lasted a long time from day one on we've been working towards that goal fourth we want greater energy security for both Ukraine and the European Union we have prepared an ambitious package to that end which we are bringing here today to Ukraine we have worked very hard during this winter actually it's not the first winter we've also worked during the winter before to keep the lights on and the house is warm in Ukraine and
I really want to thank all of those who have been involved in this hard work that you made it possible because I remember very well at the beginning of this winter we were so worried that we would not be able with all the targeted destruction by Russia of the energy infrastructure to keep the energy system up and running we have provided 1.8 gwatt of energy and up to today knock on wood we're doing fine so a lot of thank this is due to your consistent work in this field and a lot of things for that
but we're also looking forward we want to fully integrate Ukraine's electricity market and our electricity Market we want to seize the full potential of Ukraine's vast gas storages thus generating income for Ukraine and of course we want to invest in Ukraine's renewable energy capacity and finally we are supporting Ukraine while we're supporting Ukraine this is not only about the business which is important but it's mostly about people and I'm thinking here of the 700,000 displaced Ukrainian children who pursue their education in schools across the European Union I think about the Ukrainian students who could find
a new learning environment thanks to Erasmus Plus and I'm thinking about the 4.5 million ukrainians who found safety across European member states but who are longing to go back home and for that we need a just and Lasting peace and this this is more than human capital we're speaking about this is the people of Europe shaping their common European future together so dear Dennis I look very much forward to have now a very productive exchange between the college and the government
