MOSCOW - Moscow has expressed hope that the free trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union whose entry into force is being put off until 2016 will by then be revised with "all Russian concerns" taken into account.
“We expect that the decision to postpone until December 31, 2015, the entry into force of provisional free trade area rules will be legalized in the European Union and Kyiv, and that the upcoming period will be used for the legally binding settlement of all Russian concerns in the interests of sustaining bilateral economic relations by revising the Association Agreement,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sept. 17.
“It has also caught our attention that, despite ostentatious triumphalism about the long-awaited ratification [of the Association Agreement], there are signs of a pluralism of opinions among members of the European Parliament in debating this issue that brings the European Parliament closer to more realistic assessments of the true state of affairs and of the policies of authorities in Kyiv and Brussels,” the ministry said.
“We can see the possibility of the eventual solution of the entire range of Ukraine-related problems and, in broader terms and on a pan-European scale, the possibility of active joint work by the European Union and the Customs Union/Eurasian Economic Union in the interests of all citizens of Greater Europe via the joint construction of a common economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the convergence of Eurasian and European integration processes. This would make it possible to overcome fundamental mistakes and the EU’s current dangerously one-sided Eastern Partnership policy and the monochrome Association Agreements with ‘focus states’ that this policy has brought into being,” the statement said.
The ministry mentioned that Association Agreement with Ukraine was approved by the European Parliament on Sept. 17 but that it needs ratification by all 28 EU member states to come into force.
“Simultaneously, the agreement has been ratified in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada [parliament],” the ministry said. “Together with the earlier consent of the EU Council, this act of the Ukrainian parliament in principle makes possible the early implementation as from Nov. 1 of this year some of the points of the Association Agreement relating to the creation of a ‘deep and comprehensive’ free trade area between the European Union and Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, the European Commission and Ukrainian government have said no changes will be made to the text of the agreement.
