Ukraine should become an EU member despite disagreements over Volyn massacre, says Polish parliamentary speaker

Ukraine should become a member of the EU despite historical disagreements with Poland over the mass killings of Poles in Volyn in the 1940s, Speaker of the Polish Parliament Szymon Holownia said on Aug. 31.

Holownia was responding to a question from a journalist from Radio Liberty at the Globsec security conference in Prague, the news agency reported.

"If you ask me whether Ukraine should be a member of the EU, despite certain things, then yes, Ukraine should be a member of the EU. But we will continue to have some disagreements between us and Ukrainians regarding Volyn, about our history. And we will discuss them in the future, but already in the safe ecosystem of the European Union," Holownia said.

The Volyn massacre occurred in 1943, when members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) massacred tens of thousands of Poles in Nazi-occupied Volyn, a formerly-Polish region that is now part of Ukraine. Thousands of Ukrainians were killed in retaliation.

Holownia's statement contradicts comments from Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz made in July, when the minister said Ukraine would not join the EU until the disagreements are resolved.

Former Polish Foreign Ministry's Undersecretary of State Pawel Jablonski made similar comments last year, stating Ukraine "cannot dream of joining the European Union" without resolving the issue of the exhumation of Volyn massacre victims' remains on Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine opened accession talks with the European bloc last June, but a consensus of all members will be necessary to finalize the entry.

In 2017, Ukraine placed a moratorium on exhuming Volyn victims, in reaction to destruction of UPA memorials in Poland. Ukraine and Poland have not yet reached an agreement on the issue, and the subject continues to be a point of contention between the two allies.

Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy, director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, estimates that the number of Polish victims of the massacre varies from 60,000 to 90,000.

The number of Ukrainians killed by Poles in Volyn ranges between 2,000 and 3,000, according to Polish historian Grzegorz Motyka.

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The Kyiv IndependentThe Kyiv Independent news desk