Brussels, 17/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On the eve of a new trilateral ministerial meeting on 1 December, the discussions between Russia, Ukraine and the EU to take account of Russia's concerns about the upcoming implementation of the EU-Ukraine free trade agreement (FTA) seem far from a successful conclusion. On Tuesday 17 November, Russia's minister for economic development, Alexey Ulyukayev, reiterated Moscow's dissatisfaction with the most recent work.
On Tuesday, Ulyukayev criticised the reluctance of the EU and Ukraine to accept a legally binding document that would enable Russia to protect its economy from the negative consequences of the EU-Ukraine FTA. He added that expectations as to a result on 1 December were “low”. “We are absolutely unsatisfied with [the option that they have proposed] as it implies no obligations from our partners' side, though implies obligations from our side”, he said, as cited by Russian news agency Itar Tass. Ulyukayev added that another ministerial meeting will be needed after that of 1 December “in case it turns out that the partners are ready to move in the right direction”. “Probably it would make sense to meet again. But so far we don't see big reasons for this”, he said.
During their last trilateral ministerial meeting on 7 September, Russia, Ukraine and the EU agreed to continue their discussions on the technical level, hoping to respond to Russia's concerns about implementation of the EU-Ukraine FTA - which is due to be applied from 1 January 2016. The three parties had planned to agree on the technical level in October, then to meet again at ministerial level in November in order to take stock of the situation, but their inability to agree has necessarily prolonged these time schedules.
The discussions are blocked in three areas - on which the parties have been working on the technical level since the compromise of 12 September 2014 that allowed a 15-month postponement to implementation of the EU-Ukraine FTA. These three areas are customs cooperation, technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures. The last meeting at expert level took place on 9-10 November.
Questioned on Tuesday, the European Commission told EUROPE that provisional implementation of the EU-Ukraine FTA will start on 1 January 2016, and that the agreement will “not be re-opened or renegotiated”. “The EU is fully and constructively engaged in the trilateral talks on the implementation of the EU-Ukraine FTA. We continue to look for practical solutions to concerns raised by Russia in view of reaching a joint understanding at ministerial level on 1 December 2015. The EU has shown great openness and made a lot of constructive proposals in the three agreed areas [customs cooperation, technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures] that relate to the FTA implementation, and expects that on this basis a common understanding can be found on Russia's concerns”, the Commission stated.
On the Russian side, Ulyukayev warned last week that Russia would impose a trade regime without preferences on Ukraine and would extend the embargo on the EU to certain food products if the Russian proposals are not accepted in a legally binding form.
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 FTA enters into force on 1 January 2016. “We have a lot of meetings (…) Our condition there is that it is not leading to an embargo from the Russian side, but of course there are no guarantees”, Malmström said. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)