MILAN, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko discussed the possibility of Europe providing greater macro-financial assistance to Ukraine on the sidelines of the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit that ended in Milan Friday.
"We have discussed the possibility of increasing our macro-financial assistance to Ukraine," Barroso stated.
"This is a very important matter," the European Commission president added.
Barroso and President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy met Poroshenko on Thursday to discuss the implementation of the Minsk ceasefire agreement. Moreover, Jose Manuel Barroso, Petro Poroshenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy participated in the breakfast meeting on the margins of the ASEM summit on Friday.
The European Commission has already allocated part of its Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) programs for Ukraine aimed at helping the country to undergo political and economic reforms.
In May, a 100 million euro ($128 million) tranche was transferred from the first program totaling 610 million euro ($819 million), in June 500 million euro ($640 million) were transferred as part of the second program totaling 1 billion euro ($1.28 billion). In August Barroso and Poroshenko discussed by telephone the issues of granting Ukraine a third wave of EU macro-financial assistance.
