BRUSSELS, Nov. 29 – EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has confirmed that Kiev and Brussels agreed at the EU-Ukraine summit on November 22 that they will come to an agreement on the issue of a free-trade area in the first half of 2011.

"We had a very constructive meeting with your President [Viktor Yanukovych], we both expressed hope that we would get to an agreement before a summer break, it means the first half of next year, and that to get there we should speed up our meetings," he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine in Brussels.