Brussels, 20/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - Back from Kiev, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle said he was “encouraged” to see “the determination” of Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych and of the president of the parliament, Volodymyr Rybak, in cooperation with all the parliamentary colours, “to adopt key legislation on 21 November 2013 on the parliamentary elections, a new law on the office of the general prosecutor and a new law on the medical care abroad of detainees”. He also hailed “the considerable progress” made over recent months on the criteria laid down by the Foreign Affairs Council of 10 December which was discussed at the Council on 18 November.
“The EU's commitment to take relations between the EU and Ukraine to a new quality, opening new opportunities for the Ukrainian people is firm”, said Füle, stating that the door for such a qualitative leap is open and that the EU is waiting for the Ukrainian government to implement its decision of 18 September to sign the association agreement in Vilnius on 29 November.
Füle visited Kiev on 18-20 November on behalf of President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso in order to discuss preparations with Yanukovych for the Eastern Partnership summit on 28-29 November - including the signature of the associaiton agreement.
If the agreement is not signed, the pause in relations could be long. The previous day, President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaité believed that if Ukraine does not sign its association agreement at the Vilnius summit, “nothing guarantees that it could be signed after a year or two (…). The pause in relations [between the EU and Ukraine] could last a long time”. While the Rada is having difficulty in agreeing on the law for the transfer of prisoners abroad to receive medical care, Grybauskaité told French news agency AFP on 19 November that Yanukovych and the pro-Tymoshenko opposition share the responsibility for finding a compromise on an agreement of this type and for getting the agreement ratified. “If the law that should resolve the Tymoshenko case is not adopted, the EU member countries will not sign an association agreement with Ukraine”, Grybauskaité warned (our translation throughout). (CG/transl.fl)