Brussels, 21/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The announcement by the Russian Federation, on Monday 21 December, that the embargo on food products would be extended to Ukraine has put a definitive end to the trilateral negotiations between the European Commission, Kiev and Moscow on the application of the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union - which is due to come into force on 1 January 2016.
Although a meeting was being held in Brussels between European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Russia's Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyakayev, Russia's Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev confirmed from Moscow that as of 1 January 2016 Russia would extend to Ukraine the embargo on food products that is already imposed on Western countries. Medvedev's announcement came a few hours after the EU had formally decided to extend its sanctions against Russia (see other article).
Following this new Russian decision, there will no longer be any meeting in this trilateral format, Malmström told an impromptu press conference on Monday. She regretted that 18 months of trilateral negotiations (which had involved 22 meetings, including 15 at ministerial level) had led to this result. She gave assurances that they had been attentive to the Russian concerns about the EU-Ukraine association agreement - some of which were “realistic”, and others not, she said. However, she said that in the end, even if they had been close to an agreement, it was the Russian side that had led to the failure, in not being sufficiently flexible. She then added that with a little goodwill “we would have got there”.
These negotiations had already been made difficult by the decree of Russia's President Vladimir Putin, subjecting goods from Ukrainian soil to customs duties at the border from 1 January 2016 (see EUROPE 11456). This had “deeply surprised” Malmström, she admitted. The EU has nevertheless decided to continue the efforts, offering the guarantee of continued trilateral negotiations after the association agreement enters into force if the Russians overturn their decision.
According to the Commission, several “practical solutions” have been tabled for responding to the Russian concerns “in the three main areas of the talks - namely technical barriers to trade (TBT), sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS) and customs cooperation. Some Russian demands were nonetheless “unacceptable” - especially those on concluding a legally binding agreement that would amend the association agreement between Ukraine and the EU, Malmström stated. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)