You're reading: Tombinski hopes EU-Ukraine Association Agreement be signed in November

Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, Ambassador Jan Tombinski hopes that the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will be signed at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November 2013. 

“We hope this will be done in Vilnius in November and possibly later on, from January 1 next year, [the part of the agreement on] the free trade agreement (FTA) will take effect,” the ambassador said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

He also rejected reports from some media saying that the part of the agreement on the FTA could be signed separately, before the signature of the Association Agreement as a whole.

“The FTA is part of the entire Association Agreement. It cannot be signed separately. It is a single agreement,” Tombinski said.

As reported, Ukraine hopes to sign the Association Agreement with the EU before the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November 2013. The EU also said that this is possible, if Ukraine implements the necessary reforms. According to the EU, Ukraine has to solve problems related to the parliamentary election campaign, improve its election legislation, do away with selective justice, and implement reforms envisaged by the association agenda.

The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was initialed by the sides in 2012. So far technical checking of the draft agreement has been completed and the sides are preparing official translations of the document into Ukrainian and the languages of all EU Member States, following which the document is to be signed and ratified.