Brussels, 07/04/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Saturday 5 April, Sweden's Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt told several journalists in Athens that the EU needs to sign the whole association agreement with Ukraine in June.
“We need to sign the complete agreement. The plan, I think, is to sign all of these agreements at the same time [with Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine], sometime in June”, he said. In Bildt's view, there is no doubt that Russia will try to stop the signatures once again. “Oh, I'm quite certain that he will do that (…). I doubt there will be applause in the Kremlin. There might be something else coming from the Kremlin - thunder rather than applause”, he added.
Bildt stressed that the EU was under a sort of pressure from the partner countries to sign the agreements as quickly as possible. “They've been less than happy that it takes some time for us to sign these things. They would prefer to sign tomorrow. But we are not going to be ready by June”, he predicted. The agreements must also be translated into the language of the countries and then into the languages of the EU member states - and each agreement is around 1,000 pages long.
During the European Councils on 20 and 21 March, the European leaders stated that they wanted to sign the agreements with Moldova and Georgia, including on deep and comprehensive free-trade areas, “in June 2014 at the latest” (see EUROPE 11044). (CG)