Brussels, 21/08/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, will meet with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in Brussels on Thursday 27 August.
The meeting will focus on application of the Minsk Agreements establishing a ceasefire in the east of Ukraine, announced a European Commission spokeswoman on Friday 21 August. It will follow a discussion in Berlin on Monday 24 August where the Ukrainian leader will meet his German and French counterparts, who are the European drafters of the Minsk Agreements.
The agreement has enabled a fragile ceasefire to be in place since February in Ukraine, which has suffered deadly clashes in recent weeks. “The renewed escalation of the conflict raising the number of casualties, as a result of attacks on several government-controlled areas today and in the night of 10 August in Starohnativka, violates the spirit and the letter of the Minsk Agreements,” explained a spokeswoman for EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini in a press release on 11 August, condemning incidents targeting members of the OECD's mission to monitor implementation of the Minsk Agreements on the ground.
Future negotiations about gas and the free-trade deal
Consultations will resume to encourage an agreement between Russian giant Gazprom and Ukraine on the delivery of Russian gas for the winter period. EU Energy Commissioner Maros Sefcovic will meet Ukrainian energy minister Volodymyr Demchyshyn in Vienna on 27 August. A meeting with Russian minister Alexander Novak is envisaged in early September and the aim is to get Russians and Ukrainians together at the end of September under the aegis of the EU, explained Climate Action Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete on Thursday 20 August, according to Belgian press agency Belga (see EUROPE 11370).
The EU is highly dependent on the situation in Ukraine since a third of European gas from Gazprom transits through the country. The Commissioner said the European Commission has submitted a working document to the parties on the outstanding issues - the nature and duration of the agreement, the price formula and a price reduction granted by Moscow, the minimum volume of gas to be purchased and the financing of Ukraine's gas purchases.
The Commission will be organising a new ministerial meeting in Brussels on 7 September on the tricky question of the free-trade zone between the EU and Ukraine, which Russia opposes (see EUROPE 11355). Kiev is suffering from recession (with GDP shrinking by 6.8% in 2014) and is currently trying to strike an agreement with its lenders on a restructuring of its public debt. (Mathieu Bion)