Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko has said that Ukraine does not understand the logic of additional conditions in the process of signing an association agreement with the EU.
"What kind of country will we be if we start implementing everything what someone from abroad tells us? Therefore, we believe it is rather important and beneficial for both parties to sign the association agreement with the EU without additional conditions," he said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s information policy department reported on March 31.
Gryshchenko also said that Ukraine was facing double standards.
"The former Icelandic prime minister is now on trial on charges of the ineffective management of the country during the financial crisis, and nobody in the EU says anything on this issue. [Former Ukrainian Prime Minister] Yulia Tymoshenko was convicted for abuse of office in the signing of gas contracts with Russia that cost Ukraine billions [of dollars] of unjustified losses, and European politicians are indignant about this," he said.
Gryshchenko said that the Ukrainian judicial system and criminal procedure law largely did not meet the highest European standards and were currently undergoing a process of reform, but in any case current laws and court decisions must be respected and observed.
He said that Tymoshenko has the right to file a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights, the decision of which Ukraine recognizes in accordance with its international obligations.
