On 8 June 2023 Dr. Liliia Honcharevych, Acting Ambassador of Ukraine (Chargé d`affaires) in the Kingdom of Norway, gave a keynote address at the book workshop “Ukraine: A New EU Member State? From “Integration without Membership” to “Integration through War”, held at the University of Agder. The workshop was organized under the project “Lowering the Bar? Compliance Negotiations and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement” funded by the Research Council of Norway (2021-2024).
In her keynote address, Dr. Honcharevych zoomed in on the state-of-play and challenges of Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration and post-war rebuilding. She made a special emphasis on the role of Norway and the Norwegian-Ukrainian bilateral cooperation in these respects, for instance, through Norway’s multiannual Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine. The Acting Ambassador and workshop participants also discussed the ways Norway can potentially contribute to addressing Ukraine’s most urgent needs, such as those, stemming from Russia’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam on 6 June 2023. This issue was overtaken at Dr. Honcharevych’s subsequent meeting with UiA colleagues from the Centre for Integrated Emergency Management.