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EU step closer to agreements with Ukraine
Journal Staff Report

KIEV, May 15 – The European Union moved a step closer to signing a political association and free trade agreement with Ukraine after the European Commission gave it conditional go ahead on Wednesday.

"Today's adoption of the two proposals for Council Decision technically enables the EU to move ahead with the required preparatory arrangements without pre-empting any decision," the European Commission said in a statement.

The approval of the proposals is a necessary formality to allow the agreements to proceed, but adds pressure on Ukraine to fulfill its commitments before the deal can be signed in November.

"It is now up to the Ukrainian authorities to address the outstanding issues in order to enable the signing of the Agreement," the European Commission said.

Ukraine hopes to sign the deals at a summit in Vilnius in November, but Brussels has earlier made it conditional on Kiev passing a number of legal reforms and addressing Western criticism of its justice and electoral systems.

Ukraine was also supposed to tackle the issue of “selective justice,” a term used to describe politically motivated prosecutions of opposition leaders in Ukraine.

One such leader, former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, was pardoned by President Viktor Yanukovych in early April and released from jail. Lutsenko, who spent two years behind bars, was sentenced to four years in prison fro abuse of office.

However, Yanukovych has so far refused to pardon Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, who was jailed to seven years in October 2011 for abuse of office.

Kostiantyn Yeliseyev, Ukraine's representative to the EU, praised the approval, underscoring a progress made on the path to the agreements.

"Today's decision of the European Commission is recognition of the progress that has recently been made by Ukraine in the context of the EU Foreign Affairs Council conclusions of December 10, 2012,” Yeliseyev said.

The development comes after the EU in February has given Ukraine three months – until the end of May - to improve its judicial and election systems and to adopt reforms to qualify for the free-trade and political association agreement this year.

The failure to meet the deadline in May would most have likely postponed the agreement for years, seriously complicating the country’s chances of reforming its economy and achieving robust economic growth.

The deadline was given to President Viktor Yanukovych at the EU-Ukraine summit in Brussels in February. Yanukovych spent more than two hours in talks with European leaders behind closed doors.

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, said after the talks that the EU needed to see “determined action” by Ukraine “by the latest by May this year” if the association agreement were to be signed “by the time” of the Eastern Partnership summit in November.

The May deadline was chosen because some time would be needed after that to tie up any loose ends if an agreement is to be signed in November.

The EU postponed the agreement last year after former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was jailed in a case many in the bloc see as politically motivated. Yanukovych has pledged to resolve the issue, though prosecutors threatened last month to imprison her for life for alleged murder. (tl/ez)




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