KIEV -- Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma rallied parliamentarians on Tuesday to speed reforms and boost the economy to accelerate the ex-Soviet state's sluggish progress along the road to integration with Western Europe.

Kuchma, Ukraine's longest serving post-independence leader, said entrance into the European Union was the major goal for Ukraine, a country of 49 million people that has so far failed to meet Western expectations and break with its communist past.

"The `European choice' is the cornerstone of our policy to form a civil society and socially-oriented market economy which will create the conditions for us to join the European Union," Kuchma told Ukraine's newly-elected Parliament.

"We have set integration into the European Union as the target, but setting it as our target does not mean it will just happen automatically, we need to work hard to achieve it," he said in an address to the nation which lasted about 40 minutes.

The 63-year-old, who was first elected in 1994 and has generally overseen economic decline, told parliamentarians to work on boosting the economy, speed reforms and spur growth in a country where average monthly wages stand at around $40.

Economic growth was the only way to form a middle class, fight poverty and drag the country closer to Western norms, he said, calling on the divisive chamber to forget their differences and work together for the good of the country.

The Parliament was elected on March 31 and has been split between reformers and allies of Kuchma, who survived demands for his resignation last year. Two opposition factions walked out of the chamber when Kuchma started to speak.