15 September 2014, Kyiv – During the last round of trilateral consultations last Friday in Brussels the following agreements were reached: provisional application of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) is delayed until 31 December 2015, autonomous trade measures of the EU to the benefit of Ukraine continue during this period, Ukraine and CIS will continue applying preferential trade regime. However issues that are strategic for Ukraine were preserved: ratification of the Association Agreement and European integration reforms have not been delayed, text of the agreement has not been amended. Such statement made Oleksandr Danylyuk, President’s envoy to the Cabinet of Ministers at a briefing in the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “Political and economic parts of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement which are significant to us have been signed taking into account Ukraine’s interests, tomorrow the Parliament will ratify it. The EU has actually financed accords on delaying Ukraine’s fulfillment of its commitments by having supported Ukraine economically,” said Mr. Danylyuk.
The EU-Ukraine Association Agreement comes into force in two stages: temporary and full application. Its full application foresees ratification of the agreement by the European Parliament and by the Ukrainian Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) as well as by parliaments of 28 EU member states. At the moment the agreement is ratified by 4 countries – Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Until the full application EU can decide on the agreement’s areas of application including trade one. In such a way mutual commitments are defined between the parties. Ukraine’s commitments are gradual decrease of import duties and increase of import of goods from the EU, harmonization of Ukrainian legislation first of all as to the technical regulations, by introducing these regulations and phytosanitary measures. “As an act of support the EU has opened its market for Ukrainian goods in a unilateral way. Today these commitments have been extended and our task is to get maximum benefit by facilitating entry of Ukrainian goods into the open European market. That’s why implementation of the ratified agreement will start already tomorrow,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk.
Russia has stressed not a single time that if Ukraine does not listen to its demands Russia will not apply on Ukraine highest preferential regime between Ukraine and the CIS. According to Mr. Danylyuk it actually means increase of tariffs for Ukraine and losses in the amount not less than UAH 3 billion. “It is obvious that Russia is putting pressure not only in the trade area. Apart from that being a party in the consultations it tries to present results of these consultations as its own victory. However de-facto there is a text in which our European choice for which we paid high price is laid down, and there are particular steps that we are ready to take for the changes in our country,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk.
