Ex-Minister of foreign affairs of Czech Republic visited Ukraine with #UkraineReforms

On March 31, Alexandr Vondra, ex-Minister of foreign affairs and ex-Minister of defense of Czech Republic, visited Vinnytsia within the frame of #UkraineReforms, joint project of Wilfried Martens Centre, Kyiv School of Economics, Reanimation Package of Reforms and Stronger Together.

Mr.Vondra paid visit to the Donetsk National University, which was relocated from Donetsk to Vinnytsia after the Russian invasion started in the end of 2014. He spoke about dramatic political transformation, which took place in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the 80s and 90s and the consequences of changes for Czech Republic, in particular. “For the transformation you need three things: a vision, a program with concrete steps and public support. We were lucky to have two great leaders of transformation – Vaclav Havel and Vaclav Klaus – an idealist and a realist. They hated each other but sacrificed this personal hatred for the sake of the country and worked together,” – Mr. Vondra said.

He also participated in a public discussion on the further steps for Ukraine with post-Soviet transformation together with Olha Salo, program coordinator of the Center for research on liberation movement, expert of the Reanimation Package of Reforms and Liubov Akulenko, chief executive officer of the Ukrainian Center for European Policy and coordinator of Stronger Together information campaign. The government has to perform the necessary reforms quickly, so that the people can see the results and reforms should be also the prerequisite for the EU integration, according to him.  “Integration into NATO and the EU happened after we did the reforms. The membership wasn’t not a prerequisite of changes but a consequence,” – Mr.Vondra said.