EU approves Ukraine Association proposal, awaits more steps

The European Commission approved on May 15 a draft proposal by the European Union (EU) Council to sign the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius in late November. The Council will receive the agreement for further adjustment, said the European Commission press service, as reported by the UNIAN news agency. This ruling doesn’t ensure that the Council will approve its draft proposal, as it still is waiting for the Ukrainian government to fulfill political preconditions, as well as “additional expectations of an improvement in Ukraine’s business climate.”

The same day, National Security and Defense Council Chair Andriy Kliuyev, who is responsible for the Association Agreement, told Euronews that all the criteria from the February Ukraine-EU summit will be fulfilled because all the preconditions are in place. “The legislative base that is supposed to be formed to sign the Association Agreement with the EU will practically be ready by the end of May,” he said, citing laws approved this week and more legislation anticipated in the coming weeks.

Zenon Zawada: The European Commission’s approval was to be expected and should be understood as merely a bureaucratic maneuver. It’s more revealing that the document indicated that political preconditions have yet to be fulfilled. An opposition MP told the media on May 15 that representatives of the administration of President Viktor Yanukovych have attempted to convince imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to accept her release in exchange for abstaining from politics. She reportedly declined this offer, demanding her full legal and political rights.

In this context, it’s encouraging to see the Yanukovych administration making an effort to meet EU demands. However, it’s also demonstrating its contempt for European values, such as free and competitive elections (that Tymoshenko could participate in). It’s this disregard for European values that still have the potential to undermine the agreement’s signing. For instance, the opposition candidates of five contested districts from the October parliamentary election remain unsatisfied with recent efforts by the ruling majority to hold a revote, alleging ongoing political repressions. The revote is among the EU’s Association preconditions. One of the candidates, Viktor Romaniuk, remains exiled in Italy and is afraid to return to Ukraine, citing an outstanding warrant for his arrest in alleged corruption charges.