Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule told Uraine that it needs to resolve the "the outstanding case of selective justice, particularly the one remaining the case of Yulia Timoshenko" for EU to sign an Association Agreement with the former Soviet State. The upcoming signing of the Agreement in November has angered Russia which wants Ukraine to join a rival free-trade are made up by itself, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Fule made the statement after meeting with three leaders from the Ukrainian parliamentary opposition: Vitaliy Klichko (UDAR), Oleh Tiahnybok (Svoboda) and Arseniy Yatsenyuk (Batkivshyna) in Brussels.
Timoshenko, a former Prime Minister, is in prison on charges of abuse of power.
It was the latests in a series of meetings with Ukrainian officials in the past few days. "This has been actually Ukrainian week here in Brussels, in the European institutions, and rightly so, this only shows how much attention we pay to this important neighbour and how committed we are to the shared ambition to sign the Association Agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November and create the conditions for it," Fule said.
"Ukraine needs to show determined action and tangible progress on all the benchmarks so that the EU could sign the Association Agreement in Vilnius" Fule added.
The EU also wants Ukriane's judiciary and General Prosecutors office to be reformed, electoral legislation to be improved, and is also asking for improvement to the business climate.
Fule also said that the country's parliament needs to carry out critical legislative work quickly. "Time is of essence, I have underlined that on Tuesday and I have underlined it again today, as the EU will assess Ukraine's implementation of the benchmarks already in October," he said but added that despite time pressure he would expect a full-fledged process, including not only voting but consideration.
"The process of Ukraine's political association and economic integration with the EU should be an inclusive endeavour. It needs a broad consensus on the EU reform oriented agenda with constructive contributions of both government and opposition as well as with the civil society," the Enlargement Commissioner concluded.