European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle said that, “any outside pressure on Ukraine related to its ambition to sign the Association Agreement with the EU is not acceptable.”
The comments by the Commissioner is a direct response to Russia’s stand which has warned Ukraine that it won’t let the country into its Customs Union, if it seals a trade agreement with the EU.
On 27 August, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said after a Russian-Ukrainian meeting that Ukraine can’t participate in a trade alliance with the EU and the customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus in the same time. According to Shuvalov, the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine would mean that about 95 per cent of goods become subject to zero customs duty. As a result the European goods will come to the Ukrainian market and then “will penetrate into the territory of the Customs Union uncontrollably.” Therefore Russia has decided to tighten the customs procedures for Ukrainian goods entering the Russian Market.
However, European Commissioner Füle rejected the Russian claim and said after his meeting with Andriy Klyuyev, the Ukrainian official responsible for the European integration of Ukraine. “In view of Russia's concerns over rules-of-origin problems, it is worth recalling that in the context of the Russia/Ukraine free trade area, in the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), EU goods exported to Ukraine through the future DCFTA will not qualify for preferential treatment when exported from Ukraine to Russia. Therefore, the signature of a free trade agreement with a third party, meaning us, may not be used as a justification for the tightening of customs procedures.”
Besides the Russian claims against the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, Füle underlined that the neigbour country did some significant step towards the EU integration process especially in regard with the functioning of the Prosecutor’s office and the improvement of the electoral legislation. However, he stressed that judicial and media reforms and further improvement of the electoral legislation are still needed.
EU and Ukraine, share the joint ambition to have the Association Agreement signed at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius this November.