The Ukrainians are puzzled by the phrase dropped by European High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell during his official visit to this post-Soviet and still non-EU country. The EU’s chief diplomat said that the EU was not a charity or an ATM machine. Both Ukrainian top officials and ordinary people grasped his words as a reproach. As a result, the EU foreign affairs chief had to account for his statement and remove it from his report on the visit to Ukraine.
As it often happens, the phrase was cited out of the context. So, both Ukraine and the EU attached their own sense to it. Some media reported that Josep Borrell reminded Ukraine’s President that the EU was not an ATM machine because Brussels intended to slash generous financial support to Ukraine. Other sources pointed out that the top EU diplomat visited Ukraine amid stalling reforms of the corrupted judicial system and government agencies, so there is something more important than financial aid. Nevertheless, the original phrase looks like that: “As I told the President [of Ukraine], the European Union is not a charity or a cash machine: the best way for us to support Ukraine is to help reforming the country. But only the Ukrainians themselves can implement those reforms.” In other words, each of the viewpoints has sense. However, Brussels decided to delete the part about an ATM machine to avoid ambiguity.
EU spokesperson for the external affairs Peter Stano said: “This sentence, these words were immediately erased because they can be considered inadequate. Meantime, the visit of the European High Representative to Kyiv was very effective”.
