Brussels, 07/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the end of a meeting with European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström on the sidelines of the G20 trade ministers meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday 6 October, Russia's Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukaev stated that the Russian side was “not satisfied yet” with the draft document compiled by the EU to take account of the risks for the Russian economy of the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement.
“Last time we met at the ministerial level in Brussels we agreed that the colleagues would offer their alternative to the draft document, which we prepared back in June, which from our viewpoint allows mitigating our concerns and risks. They've sent such a project, which we are not satisfied with yet”, Ulyukaev told Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
At their last trilateral ministerial meeting on 7 September, Russia, Ukraine and the EU agreed to continue their discussions on the technical level until the end of October - discussions aimed at responding to the Russians' concerns about implementation of the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement (FTA), which is due to be applied from 1 January 2016.
The three sides met at experts level in Brussels on Tuesday 7 October, and have planned to meet again at ministerial level in November to take stock of the situation.
Discussions are stalling in three areas on which the three sides agreed to work after the compromise of 12 September 2014 that enabled a 15-month postponement of the EU-Ukraine FTA - customs cooperation, technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
According to Itar-Tass, Russia's Deputy Economic Development Minister Alexei Likhachev recently spoke of Russia's desire for the three sides to prepare an intergovernmental agreement on implementing the EU-Ukraine association agreement. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)