Claude Moraes, rapporteur. − Mr President, the Commissioner, in his introductory remarks, talked about this facilitation agreement being important for the population of Ukraine. He also talked about homophobia being something that the Commission did not want. That is fine, but let me restate, so that there is no confusion as to where I stand as rapporteur and where I stand for my Group.

Mr Cashman and others, I think, made speeches which I want to encapsulate in this statement so that there is no confusion. The S&D Group, my group, wants to send a clear message to the Ukrainian Government, to the parliament in Ukraine, and to you, Commissioner, that there should be no deepening of the Ukrainian-EU relationship for as long as the anti-propaganda laws are still on the table in the Ukrainian Government and in the Parliament.

We want to see advancements towards progressive, serious improvements in LGBT rights and on the rule of law and democracy in the Ukraine before any more movements towards full liberalisation are made. This is because we believe in our Group – and obviously across this House – that this is part of the visa dialogue. We have to see these improvements. If we are a community of values, then this must be part of that dialogue. It is only on this basis that we would not support such a referral back and we would support my report.

For those colleagues who do not believe that, as a community of values, we cannot bring human rights into this dialogue – this is fundamentally wrong. I called for this debate to focus on this issue because, unlike all other visa liberalisations, this visa liberalisation should be a test case for focusing on human rights.

I say to the Commission and to anyone else who is looking at this debate: human rights must be part of that visa dialogue for the future. We put the Ukrainian Government on notice that we will be watching to ensure that we remain a community of values in our neighbourhood policy.