More than 50 per cent of respondents believe that a condition for Ukraine’s entry into the EU should be consent to the exhumation of the victims of the Volhynia Massacre, according to a survey for Rzeczpospolita. 

The survey referred to the words of Prime Minister Tusk and Deputy Prime Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz who both said the solving of the Volhynia Massacre problems will have consequences on Poland’s position in the Ukraine EU accession negotiations, that require the change to the EU treaties. 

The survey was conducted among internet users on 24-25 September 2024. The analysis covered a group of 800 internet users over the age of 18. The sample was selected in a random-quota manner. 

As results show 52.6 percent of respondents agree that this should be a condition for the country’s entry to the EU. 

A negative answer to the question was given by 19.6 percent of respondents, with the remaining 27.8 percent of respondents having no opinion on the matter. 

A positive answer to the question was given by 60.4 per cent of men and 45.7 percent of women.

The Volhynia Massacre was a genocide committed by Ukrainian nationalists and local population between 1943 and 1945 against Poles in the areas of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The Ukrainian state has blocked the exhumations of the victims of the Volhynia Massacre in 2017.

In the spring of 2017, the Ukrainian National Remembrance Institute issued a ban on the search for and exhumation of the remains of Polish victims of wars and conflicts on Ukrainian territory. Neither the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nor the government of Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has changed this decision.

Ukraine applied to join the EU after Russia launched its invasion of the country on 24 February 2022. It now has the status of an EU candidate state. If Ukraine wants to join the EU it will have to negotiate the consent of all of its present members.  

Source: PAP, rp.pl

Photo: @Avanti_1989

Tomasz Modrzejewski