The European Union’s parliament supports Ukraine’s bid to achieve candidate status to join the European Union, the parliament’s president Roberta Metsola said on Friday at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.

“This debate on democracy took on a new reality on February 24th, when President Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine. The world changed, and suddenly we realised that everything we took for granted was being brutally upended. And now Ukraine and its people are looking to Europe for support. They are looking to the United States. They are looking to the United Kingdom. They are looking to us to match our rhetoric, our values, with action.

How we have responded to the invasion and how we must continue to respond is the litmus test of our values. The unity and resolve of our response has held. The defiance, the everyday acts of extraordinary heroism of the Ukrainian people has meant that Putin’s three-day war is now entering day 106.

As we speak here, as we’ve just heard from President Zelensky, Ukraine is still being invaded. Bombs are still killing indiscriminately. Women are still being raped. Children are being forcibly deported. Millions have fled and will continue to do so. The world’s grain and cereal supply is being held at ransom while Russia fills its silos.

Europe, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have remained united in responding, in helping Ukraine with military, humanitarian, financial and political aid.

We will help Ukraine with ambitious reforms to maintain a real system of democratic governance with resilient, effective and accountable institutions. This is not only about safeguarding Ukrainian democracy but also about preserving European - and global - democracy too.

So let me be clear: the European Parliament, which I have the honour and responsibility to preside, stands firmly behind Ukraine’s bid to receive EU candidate status”, - said Metsola.