<\/A><\/P>
\nThis was Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini\u2019s message at the end of the EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg yesterday, 14 April 2014. It is a message that echoes the line that emerged from the Council, a line which Minister Mogherini herself had anticipated: at this time, there is no \u201cstage 3\u201d of measures against Moscow on the table.<\/P>
\n
4-party meeting in Geneva<\/STRONG><\/P>
\nExpectations are now focused on the four-party meeting \u2013 between Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the EU \u2013 taking place in Geneva on Thursday 17 April to seek to resolve the crisis. A meeting that Mogherini describes as \u201cvery delicate, and very difficult\u201d but which, she adds, is \u201cthe only opening we have to find a solution to the situation in Ukraine. We need to ensure that none of the parties concerned takes any action that could close this window of dialogue we\u2019ve opened. We continue to hold the position that we\u2019ve always expressed and that we share with our European, and other, partners. The only solution to the situation in Ukraine is dialogue. That is the call to responsible action for all parties involved in the crisis, inside and outside Ukraine\u201d. <\/P>
\n
1 billion euros in additional financial assistance to Kiev <\/STRONG><\/P>
\nThe EU has formally approved financial assistance to Kiev amounting to 1 billion euros. It has also approved a unilateral reduction of customs duties until November 2014, to bring forward the effects of the signing of the Association Agreement. The financial assistance is intended to help the provisional government in Kiev meet its financial commitments and comes in addition to the 610 million euros of \u201cmacro-financial assistance\u201d already approved but not yet delivered. The foreign ministers also added another 4 names to the list of Ukrainian personalities linked to the previous government and now subject to an assets freeze and ban on EU travel for misappropriation of public funds. <\/P>
\n
Damascus<\/STRONG> must fulfil obligations to have chemical weapons destroyed<\/STRONG><\/P>
\nThe EU foreign ministers also discussed the situation in Syria and deplored the regime\u2019s obstruction and role in the failure of the Geneva 2 talks. They noted the delay in the transfers of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons. Damascus, they reiterated, must demonstrate to the international community that it is complying with all its obligations to have its chemical weapons arsenal destroyed by the end of June 2014. <\/P>
\n
The 28 ministers reiterated the EU\u2019s efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the population. They stressed that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity must be held accountable and called on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe must ensure that the window of dialogue offered by Thursday\u2019s meeting remains open \u2013 it is the only opening we have to find a solution to the situation in Ukraine. We need to ensure, in short, that we do not give anyone an excuse not to attend the meeting in Geneva\u201d. This was Foreign […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9,6,76,42],"class_list":["post-13397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-approfondimenti","tag-europa","tag-mediterraneo-e-medio-oriente","tag-ministri-precedenti","tag-unione-europea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}