'Appalling': Ivanna Klympush slams Macron for ruling out fast-tracking EU membership for Ukraine

Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Integration of Ukraine to the EU Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has slammed French President Emmanuel Macron for rejecting the country's request for fast-tracking its EU membership.

Klympush-Tsintsadze, who is also the former Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine on matters of European integration, said ''We are a European state...I was appalled when Macron said that this was not the time to give Ukraine an EU membership.''

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She added that countries in Versailles had decided that Ukraine is indeed a European state and has the right to apply for membership in the European Union.

''We have been proving that not only in words that we are a European state but also we are paying every single day with our lives for our desire to live in a free democratic country in the bloc.''

''With our behaviour, readiness to withhold Russian aggression and stand up for our values, we will make sure EU responds positively to our choice,'' said Klympush-Tsintsadze.

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France's president said on ThursdayRussia's invasion of Ukraine had delivered an "electric shock" to the NATO alliance and given it a new strategic clarity that it was lacking.

Emmanuel Macron, speaking to reporters as he launched his campaign for re-election, was responding to a question about whether he regretted describing NATO as "brain dead" around two years ago.

"Russia has given us a wake-up call," Macron said. "I always considered that we needed a strategic clarification, and we are in the process of getting it."

He said events in Ukraine had given NATO that clarity because it brought it back to its origins.

Macron said the situation in late 2019, when he made his remark, was different from today, and that the alliance was indispensable for dealing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Macron said that he didn't exclude going to Kyiv, but that his priority was to continue discussions with the Ukrainian and Russian presidents, with whom he would speak again in the coming hours.

"Without something tangible, going would be in vain... I will do it when it would be useful," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)