You're reading: Dutch ambassador: EU-Ukraine Association Agreement ready, hard to predict date of its signing

The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union is ready to be signed, but there is no guarantee that it will happen this year, Ambassador of the Netherlands to Ukraine Pieter Jan Wolthers has said.

“Returning to the Association Agreement, I want to stress that it is ready
and awaiting signature. Perhaps it will be signed in November. But there is no
guarantee of this, because the EU has certain conditions, which should be
fulfilled by the Ukrainian side. Specifically, one of them concerns the practice
of selective justice,” the ambassador said in an interview with the Dzerkalo
Tyzhnia. Ukraine Newspaper published on Saturday.

According to the diplomat, at present it is difficult to predict whether the
agreement will be signed in November: “At present, it is extremely difficult to
answer this question. I do not know whether the agreement will be signed. The
European Union does not know that either, because now it all depends on the
actions of Ukraine.”

At the same time, this week’s visits to Ukraine by European Commissioner for
Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule, former Polish
President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former president of the European Parliament
Pat Cox give Ukraine an opportunity to show what has been done for the signing
of the Association Agreement, Wolthers said.

“I very much hope that Ukraine will take this chance. As a representative of
the country, one of the founders of the EU, I would very much like to see
Ukraine join the European community, as I am sure this is the way it should go,”
the ambassador said.