Brussels, 13/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - Visiting Kiev on Friday 13 November, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström said that the EU was doing “everything” it could to avoid trade retaliation measures from Russia against Ukraine after the EU-Ukraine free trade area enters into force on 1 January 2016.
“I am not sure of what will happen on the Russian side against Ukraine. I wish I knew, but I don't. But we are trying to do everything we can to avoid it [Russian trade retaliation]”, Malmström said at a press conference, in response to questions from Ukrainian media. “We have a lot of meetings (…) on the implementation of the free trade agreement” between the EU and Ukraine. “Our condition there is that it is not leading to an embargo from the Russian side, but of course there are no guarantees”, Malmström continued.
During the last ministerial meeting on this issue on 7 September, Russia, Ukraine and the EU agreed to continue on the technical level until the end of October. Their aim was for their discussions to respond to Russia's concerns about implementation of the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement. The three parties planned to meet again at ministerial level in November in order to take stock of the situation. This meeting is still expected by the start of December.
Malmström met Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on Friday and several members of the Ukrainian government - Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius. She congratulated them on the reforms made thus far with regard to implementing the free trade agreement. “But there is still work to be done”, she said. She nevertheless assured Ukraine of the EU's support on the reform path, and also in order to be able to take full advantage of the free trade agreement. “It's an important instrument, which requires reforms and an appropriate investment climate”, she added.
Malmström especially called on Kiev to accelerate its reforms on sanitary standards in the agricultural domain. “Ukrainian exports to the EU have increased since the introduction of trade preferences. But there is room to do better. One particularly important reform is to ensure that sanitary requirements in the agricultural domain are at the level of those of the EU. This would greatly facilitate Ukraine's agricultural exports”, she concluded. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)