Hungarian European Commissioner says Ukrainian MP asked him to lobby against "discrimination against opposition" in Ukraine

Oliver Varhelyi, the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, shared a letter on 29 February that supposedly came from Petro Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine and the leader of the European Solidarity political party. In it, Poroshenko asked Varhelyi to lobby the Ukrainian government to stop the "discriminatory practice" of not letting opposition MPs travel abroad.

Source: European Pravda

Details: Photos of the letter, allegedly written by Poroshenko, have captions claiming that he has received a preliminary invitation to the conference of the European People's Party to be held in Bucharest on 6-7 March, with the invitation being sent by the EPP chairman, Manfred Weber.

At the conference, Poroshenko is to "address the high-level audience on the situation in Ukraine and the role of the European People's Party in strengthening support to our nation in these challenging times," the letter says.

In a working democracy the opposition can’t be restricted. #Ukraine#Freedom#Fundamentalrights pic.twitter.com/jBFH8SZ6lr

— Oliver Varhelyi (@OliverVarhelyi) February 29, 2024

"I am kindly asking you to send the relevant messages to the Government of Ukraine with a view to strongly encourage the authorities to stop this discriminatory practice against opposition parties, and to ensure the political pluralism and the rights of the opposition in Ukraine is fully respected in line with EU membership criteria," the document posted by Varhelyi reads.

Furthermore, Poroshenko allegedly asks Varhelyi to raise the mentioned issues in the upcoming European Commission report on Ukraine's progress towards EU membership and the development of a negotiation framework for accession.

"In a working democracy the opposition can’t be restricted," the Hungarian Commissioner wrote in his post. Based on this, it was sent the day before, on 28 February.

Neither Petro Poroshenko nor the European Solidarity party has officially commented on the letter.

Read also: Outrage Sparked in Ukraine by Parliament Speaker's Efforts to Sabotage Opposition Internationally

In February, Poroshenko claimed that the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament), Ruslan Stefanchuk, had not signed the decree that would allow Poroshenko to attend the Munich Security Conference, allegedly because of a threat to his life. At the time, the Rada said it had not received any "statements and relevant documents" from Poroshenko.

Recently, there have been several high-profile scandals involving the denial of access to meetings with international partners for opposition MPs, and this topic has attracted media attention both in Ukraine and abroad.

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