Association Agreement to be signed in 2013, PM says

Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov told the Dec. 26 meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers that Ukraine will sign its Association Agreement with the EU in 2013. “We took a historic step towards signing the Association Agreement with the EU and in March initialized its political part and approved with our partners the Association’s plan for action. And I am sure that the agreement will be signed next year.” The Ukrainian government initialized the Association Agreement, including the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, on March 30.

Zenon Zawada: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s last-minute cancellation of his visit to Moscow last week – with its agenda calling for Ukraine’s deep integration into the Customs Union – is a good sign for Ukraine’s Euro-integration hopes. Yet the looming threat of joining the Customs Union is not enough to convince the European leadership to speed up the Association Agreement’s signing, which will depend on factors beyond even the bigger, more daunting hurdles, among them the release of opposition leader and former PM Yulia Tymoshenko.