EU determines immediate measures for Ukraine association, diplomat says

EU member-states have determined the measures of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement that will be applied immediately after its scheduled signing on November 28-29 at the Eastern Partnership summit, said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius, as reported by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency on September 23. Those measures include 90 percent of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area and more than 50 percent of the pact’s political portion, Linkevicius said.

“Although the decision is technical, it’s very important in light of the process’s irreversibility,” he said. He also stated that this determination means nothing without the Association Agreement itself, and the final decision on whether to sign it has yet to be made.

Zenon Zawada: Even immediate changes in trade rules can take a long time to implement in practice, given Ukraine’s inherited post-Soviet bureaucracy, corruption and social inertia. We urge investors to view the possible signing of the Association Agreement as a historic formal step in what’s otherwise going to be a long, difficult process of absorbing Western values and institutions that will ultimately take decades.