Experts do not rule out that Ukraine will sign an agreement on its accession to the Customs Union at the end of this year.
“I don’t rule out that at the end of 2013, if, for various reasons, primarily political ones, the signing of the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU is disrupted, pressure from Russia increases, the economic situation in the country worsens, and there is political turmoil and a danger of losing power for Viktor Yanukovych, he will have no other choice but to share his power with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, thus insuring himself so as to remain in power in any case,” a political analyst at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, Volodymyr Horbach, said at a press conference on Thursday.
He said Russia insisted that the issue of Ukraine’s accession to the Customs Union be resolved in the first half of the year. At the same time, Ukraine is continuing to declare European integration as its priority, and hopes that on February 25, at the Ukraine-EU summit in Brussels, it will be given a signal on the possible signing of the association agreement at the Eastern Partnership summit to be held in Vilnius in early November.
The expert said that until November, Ukraine would do its best to shy away from signing the agreement on its accession to the Customs Union.
“I think that the Ukrainian authorities will be able to shy away as long as possible from joining the Customs Union, but it will depend not only on it,” Horbach said.
Director of the Perspektyva Information and Analytical Center Pavlo Rudiakov said that Ukraine’s foreign policy is subordinate to the “strategy of 2015 – the re-election of [President] Viktor Yanukovych for a second term.”
“There is a game with strategic partners – Europe and Russia, who will agree to the international legitimacy of this re-election, in respect to which there could be deep doubts,” he said.
“So I think that in 2013 there will be no sudden movements from Bankova [Street]. I think that this year will pass in anticipation of the promised procedure for the signing of the association agreement with the EU in November,” Rudiakov said.
In particular, he said he doubted that this agreement would be signed in November.
