KYIV, Sept 26 – The European Union will soon consider granting Ukraine the status of a country with a market economy in order for Ukraine to better defend its rights in antidumping investigation, officials at the European Commission’s representative office said, Ukrainian News reported.
A European Commission representative said he believed that the fact that granting this status was noted in a joint statement by the European Commission’s leadership and Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma after the Ukrainian-European Union summit in Paris on September 15 meant that the issue would soon be considered.
“The fact that the issue of granting Ukraine the status of a country with a market economy was noted in the statement already indicates that a positive decision will be made very soon,” the representative said.
The representative, however, was unable to give a possible date when the Council of Ministers of the European Commission would consider the issue, since this issue is in the competence of President Leonid Jacques Chirac of France, which presently holds the EC presidency, the report said.
The Council of Ministers will make a decision on granting (or not granting) Ukraine market economy status on the basis of a report of a special European Union commission that is currently studying the situation in Ukraine, the country’s macroeconomic and microeconomic indicators, and the level of government interference in company operations.
Granting Ukraine such status will enable Ukraine to better defend its rights during antidumping investigations in EU member countries.
During a meeting with Ukraine’s President Kuchma on September 14, France’s President Chirac expressed his country’s interest in Ukraine’s faster integration into Europe and promised to offer assistance toward this process, according to the report.
