Zelenskyy is "squandering" Ukraine’s chance for European integration, - Shabunin
Vitalii Shabunin, chairman of the board of the Center for Combating Corruption, believes that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is squandering Ukraine’s chance at European integration.
According to a Censor.NET correspondent, he made these remarks during a meeting with journalists.
"Zelenskyy is squandering the chance for European integration. Because in 2019, we had the opportunity to achieve candidate status in seven years. It wasn’t about it happening right away. Then came the war, in which Ukrainians and the Defense Forces fought for what we have today—actual EU candidate status. Beyond that, society can do nothing," Shabunin noted.
According to him, the government should now be addressing the issue of European integration.
"As a society, we have overcome Zelenskyy’s failures and raced through these seven years as if they were just a few years of war. What happens next is no longer up to us. That is Zelenskyy’s specific responsibility. On one hand, he holds the opportunity—won by Ukrainians and the Armed Forces at a terrible cost—to become part of the EU; on the other, he holds his own interests: to continue controlling the SBI, the OPG, and the rear-area SSU. So now he must choose: to do what the European Union demands in order to integrate very quickly and seize this opportunity, or not to do so. It’s a very simple choice. What positive motivation does Zelenskyy have for not reforming the SBI, the OPG, and the rear-area SSU, and for not fulfilling other requirements? None! He has only one desire—for these institutions to be under his control, not independent, so that he can protect his friends from punishment for crimes (primarily corruption), counteract the NABU and the SAPO, and control political processes," emphasized the chairman of the AntAC’s board.
