Brussels, 13/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 13 November, Peter Stano, the spokesperson for Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle, called on Ukraine to make a decisive step to resolve the issue of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, closed an extraordinary session during the morning of 13 November without any vote taking place. “There must now be a decisive move to resolve this issue”, Stano said.
The next session of the Ukrainian Parliament is scheduled for 19 November. However, the EU foreign affairs ministers are due to decide on 18 November whether or not they agree to the signing of an association agreement with Ukraine at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on 29 November.
MEPs speak about provocation. In a press release, the co-leader of the Greens Group at the European Parliament, Rebecca Harms, believed that adjourning the decision on the law on which the future of Yulia Tymoshenko depends should be clarified, in the presence of the European Parliament's two representatives, Pat Cox and Alexander Kwasniewski. Postponing the decision is clearly provoking the EU, Harms said, stating that this jeopardises signing the association agreement between the EU and Ukraine. She added that the EU cannot give in now. Tymoshenko's release and medical treatment in Germany have always been a pre-condition for signing the agreement, Harms said, reiterating that the agreement can only be signed if all the conditions have been fulfilled.
In the opinion of EPP deputy leader, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (Poland), the failure of the Verkhovna Rada to take a decision is a clear sign of a lack of political resolve from the Ukrainian authorities to sign an association agreement with the EU. In his view, five days before the final decision of the EU ministers (18 November), the necessary conditions laid down by the EU in December 2012 have still not been fulfilled.
Progress in other reforms. Stano said that discussions are ongoing between the member states on the state of Ukraine's progress on the criteria defined by the Council in December 2012 - on selective justice, electoral reform and reforms linked to the association agenda. He called for the adoption and urgent enactment at second reading of the draft laws on the reform of parliamentary elections and on the office of the general prosecutor because time is short.
The mission of presidents Cox and Kwasniewski was due to present its report at the conference of presidents of the European Parliament during the evening of 13 November. Stano described the report as being of crucial importance. (CG/transl.fl)