EU policymakers urged to make internal reform a condition of financial aid

The visit comes ahead of a summit of EU leaders, who meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss Ukraine.

The five parliamentarians are members of the "The Opposition Bloc", political force formed in November by six political parties that took part in Ukrainian parliamentary elections last year when the party won 9.43% (1,486,203 votes), 29 seats and took fourth place.

"The Opposition Bloc" led in five regions: Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, Lugansk and Kharkiv.Recent polls suggest that since parliamentary elections last year, their popularity has increased further. 

In the 450-seat Ukraine Parliament it currently has 40 MPs,mostly from the Donbass region of the country. Speaking on Monday in the European Parliament, Ukraine MP Julia Lyovochkina, a member of the delegation, said she hopes the visit will contribute to finding a peaceful solution to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

She said, "We are saying that while sanctions against Russia should remain there also has to be more effective and substantial dialogue between all the parties involved in this conflict."

The MPs say they are keen to also raise issues of particular concern to "under represented" people living in the Donbass region, the area in south east Ukraine which is mostly badly affected by the fighting, who did not participate in the elections in 2014.

The delegation also consists of Yuriy Boyko, a former deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine an ex-minister of fuel and energy of Ukraine, and Oleksandr Vilkul, also a former vice Prime Minister and ex-chairman of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration.

They were accompanied by Vadim Rabinovich, chairman of the political party "Center" and president of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Congress.

The aim of the two day visit is essentially to discuss the state of democracy and human rights in Ukraine with their counterparts in the European Parliament and play an "active and constructive" role for a peaceful solution in the country.

The delegation, in particular, wants to raise more awareness in Europe about human rights abuses, such as those suffering by the estimated 1.2m "internally displaced people", both Russian and Ukrainian speakers, currently suffering hardship in several areas, including housing.People in living in so called "conflict zones" have become victims of "non delivery" of basic public services, such as banking and education.

Another group suffering a similar plight are those in Crimea whose rights to freedom of assembly and speech have been disregarded.

The delegation says that the media in Ukraine is also suffering an attack on the freedom of speech with some journalists imprisoned for attacking government policy.

Opposition parties have, according to the delegation, been targeted with their traditional right to chairmanships and other senior roles in the Ukraine parliament being denied since elections last October.

"These are all topics which we want to raise in our discussions in Brussels this week," said Lyovochkina who herself was briefly threatened with prosecution for alleged "treason" after she expressed her concerns in a speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in January.

She said, "I was amazed that someone could be treated in such a way in contemporary Ukraine."Rabinovych, who chairs the sub committee on human rights in the Ukraine parliament, said there was a long standing issue of corruption and "mismanagement" in Ukraine and he called on the EU to make financial aid to Kiev conditionally upon effective internal reform.

He said, "The member states of the EU are providing billions of euros to Ukraine and we are saying that delivery of this should be directly linked to closer scrutiny of the authorities in Ukraine".

"The Ukraine currency has devalued three times in recent times and it is now the poorest country in Europe. The EU has to put more pressure on the government and authorities in Ukraine to be more accountable."

The five MPs will meet senior MEPs during their visit, including Charles Tannock, ECR foreign affairs spokesman, Greens co leader Rebecca Harms, German GUE deputy Sabine Losing, deputy chair of the security and foreign affairs committee, and Petras Austrevicius, deputy leader of the Alde group.

A meeting with Emma Udwin, deputy head of cabinet for EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn, is also scheduled before the group returns to Kiev.

Their visit to Brussels comes in the wake of calls by Germany and other countries for European Union leaders to this week endorse a declaration saying that EU sanctions on Russia will not be eased unless Moscow complies with a Ukraine ceasefire deal. 

On Monday, European Council President Donald Tusk said the EU must not compromise with Russia over sanctions in response to the Ukraine crisis.

Under the ceasefire reached in Minsk in February both sides in the Ukraine conflict were due to pull back heavy weapons by the beginning of March.

The two sides are due to create a buffer zone between them of at least 50km for artillery of 100mm calibre or more, 70km for multiple rocket systems and 140km for the heaviest rockets and missiles.