EU to decide in late October on Ukraine Association Agreement, Fule says

The European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs Council will decide on October 21 whether the Ukrainian government satisfied the requirements for signing the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule told the Kommersant-Ukraine newspaper in an interview published on September 19. The EU won’t offer an evaluation earlier than that date, he said, also expressing optimism. “During the last week, significant progress was made in reforming the election legislation,” Fule said. “A bill has been drafted on the state prosecution, which depoliticizes the given organ and helps ensure its independence. That’s unforeseen progress. We waited many years for such a step from Ukraine.”

Regarding the situation involving former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, Fule said he’s confident “a decision to a large extent will be reached in her interests.” The mission led by former European Parliament Chair Pat Cox and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski are still negotiating to arrange for her release, he said, as well as ensure that selective justice doesn’t repeat itself. “But even in that sphere, I feel that the sides have an agreement on what can be done in the remaining time,” he said. Kommersant suggested that Tymoshenko could be rearrested upon returning to Ukraine after undergoing medical treatment in Germany. As his response, Fule said, “I can’t even imagine and don’t allow for the EU, or EU representatives, will become participants of an agreement that allows Tymoshenko to travel abroad to receive medical treatment, while at the same time prevents her return to her homeland, in Ukraine, after completing treatment.”

The EU isn’t making Tymoshenko’s release a necessary condition for signing the Association Agreement, said Lithuanian Ambassador to Ukraine Petras Vaitiekunas, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on September 18. “This agreement is wider: justice for all, laws for everyone,” he said. “The EU is requiring the norms and laws of Ukraine to conform to the norms and standards of the EU. Another issue is decriminalizing a series of articles of the Criminal Code so that it also conforms to EU norms,” he said. Vaitiekunas said he expects Ukraine will sign the Association Agreement at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on November 28-29.

Zenon Zawada: As demonstrated in these comments, Tymoshenko’s imprisonment remains the single wild card in the signing of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, with practically all other obstacles being removed. Cox and Kwasniewski are serving as intermediaries in the attempt to find a compromise that all the sides will find adequate, particularly Tymoshenko. However, with such suggestions being increasingly offered by diplomats such as Vaitiekunas, it’s growing increasingly possible that the Association Agreement will be signed without Tymoshenko’s release, should her demands be considered excessive by Yanukovych.