An agreement setting up a free trade area with the CIS countries has closed Ukraine's path to trade integration with the European Union, as there cannot be two free trade areas - with the EU and the CIS - on the same territory, Ukraine's third president (2005-2010), Viktor Yushchenko, has said.
"Yesterday’s contracts closed our integration in the sphere of trade policy in the European Union in the same way as the Kharkiv contract closed our integration in the field of security. There cannot be two free trade area on the same territory – a free trade area within the [CIS], which was signed yesterday, and a free trade area, which we hoped to sign [with the EU] in December. It cannot be so," he said at a press conference on Wednesday.
Yushchenko said that the coexistence of the two trade regimes of two parties that have not formally signed respective agreements, referring to Russia and the EU, was impossible.
However, he suggested that an agreement on political association with the EU, but without the free trade area, could be signed in December 2011.
Yushchenko said that it was necessary to move into the European market in trade relations.
"As the Kharkiv contract removed our prospects for European security integration, so the contract signed yesterday removes our prospects for trade integration and the creation of the free trade area [with the EU]," he said.
