Ukraine, EU: Possible agreement, ready for dialogue with Moscow

Barroso and Van Rompuy “strongly disapprove” Russia’s “external pressure” on Kiev because they will not reopen negotiations for a free trade area with Europe: “It would benefit everyone”

The Association Agreement with Ukraine and one for a free trade area (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, DCFTA) for the European Union are “still on the table.” The Kiev government needs only to show the “political will” of wanting to “take action and make tangible progress with respect to the conditions imposed in December 2012” with regard to the country’s reforms and above all, granting permission to transfer Yulia Tymoshenko from prison to Germany to undergo any treatment (but the former Prime Minister’s name was not specified). This is what the Presidents of the Commission and the European Council, José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy asked in a joint statement, the day after the event in Kiev, where more than 100 thousand people took to the streets to ask their government to sign an agreement with Brussels, while President Viktor Yanukovych decided to terminate negotiations on November 21 to appease Russia.

 “Despite being aware of the external pressure that Ukraine is experiencing – write the presidents, referring to Moscow – we believe the short-term considerations should not allow the long-term benefits this collaboration would bring to be overlooked.” “We strongly disapprove of the Russian position and their actions in this regard,” they added referring to President Vladimir Putin’s threats to strangle the Ukrainian economy in the event that the country tightened free trade agreements with Europe.

For Barroso and Van Rompuy “closer relations with the European Union should not be at the expense of relations between our eastern partners and their other neighbors, such as Russia,” but rather “the Eastern Partnership is designed as a win-win relationship in which we all stand to gain. ” For this reason the EU “continues to be ready to clarify to the Russian Federation the mutually beneficial impact of increased trade and trade with our neighbors, in full respect of the sovereignty and independence of our eastern partners.”

To do that Brussels is ready to kick off “bilateral negotiations” with Moscow. This is what Peter Stano, spokesman for the Enlargement Commissioner Štefan Füle, told the Ukrainian 1 +1 TV. “If Ukraine’s neighbors have any questions, we are ready to set them on a bilateral basis.”

Alfonso Bianchi