On Friday 1 September, the association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine officially entered into force.
In a press release, the European Commission said that “the entry into force of the agreement will give a new impetus to the cooperation in areas such as foreign and security policy, justice, taxation, public finance management, science and technology, education and digital technology”. The agreement will also help harmonise Ukrainian standards along EU lines.
This entry into force was a real uphill struggle for Ukraine. Although the agreement should have been signed during the Eastern Partnership Summit in November 2013 (see EUROPE 10968), the president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, refused to sign it and subsequently provoked the events that took place in Maidan Square. The agreement was finally signed in Spring 2014 but the Netherlands demanded guarantees on its ratification, which again delayed its entry into force (see EUROPE 11798). Nonetheless, part of the agreement has been implemented on a provisional basis since 1 November 2014, and the deep and comprehensive free trade zone has been implemented since 1 January 2016.
The presidents of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, in addition to several MEPs and the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, seized upon this opportunity to celebrate the rapprochement between the EU and Ukraine.
Juncker stressed that “determination is a virtue. Today, in spite of all the challenges, we have made it. With the entry into force of the association agreement with Ukraine, the European Union is delivering on its promise to our Ukrainian friends”. The chair of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, David McAllister (EPP, Germany), the chair of the European Parliament's delegation to the EU-Ukraine parliamentary association committee, Dariusz Rosati (EPP, Poland), and the European Parliament's rapporteur on Ukraine, Michael Gahler (EPP, Germany), said that the entry into force marked “a historic moment in relations between the European Union and Ukraine”. They pointed out that “it had taken 10 years after the launch of the negotiations until now” and that the path had been “long and chaotic”. They added that “implementation of the agreement should therefore be an absolute priority in our future bilateral relations”.
In his speech, Poroshenko stated that the entry into force of the agreement is “the first extremely important step in the return of our country to the European family”.
Kiev denounces Junker’s view about Ukraine
In a letter to the European Commission, the Ukrainian ambassador to the EU, Mykola Tochytskyi, expressed concern at the ideas about his country put forward by the president of the European Commission during his speech to EU ambassadors.
On Tuesday 29 August, Juncker pointed out in no uncertain terms that Ukraine was neither a member of the EU or NATO. He told the EU ambassadors that “there are currently 60 wars taking place throughout the world, 60 – none in Europe and, if we do not include Ukraine, which is not ‘European’ in the European Union sense of the word. I have seen that my friend (the Ukrainian president) Petro Poroshenko, said a few days ago, that Ukraine is in the European Union and NATO. For the time being, it is in neither one nor the other. Everyone needs to know this”.
According to Tochytskyi, Juncker's ideas “were widely used by a Russian media propaganda in the information campaign aimed at discrediting Ukraine and its path towards European integration”. The head of the Ukrainian mission “expressed the hope that, in the future, declarations by EU leaders concerning Ukraine correspond to the level of strategic cooperation between Ukraine and the EU”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)