( RIA Novosti ) - Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, will attend an EU-Ukraine summit to be held in Kiev Friday, the Ukrainian foreign minister said Tuesday.
"The European Union will not abstain from the summit, which is a good political signal," Arseniy Yatsenyuk told at a news conference in Simferopol, on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, adding that "the EU will send top-ranking officials."
The Ukrainian diplomat said his country had signed visa facilitation and readmission agreements with the EU, and held four rounds of negotiations on a new Enhanced Agreement, which "paves the way for a deeper integration into the European Union."
At a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko March 8, the European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, Benita Ferrero Waldner, announced that the European Commission would provide a substantial increase in financial assistance to Ukraine in the next four years.
She said 494 million euros should be available in 2007-2010 to support the reform process and the implementation of the EU-Ukraine Action Plan.
Barroso and Yushchenko last met in April 2007.