EU responsible if Ukraine doesn

The European Union (EU) will be responsible if the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement isn’t signed this year, Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov told reporters on March 28, according to the Cabinet of Ministers press service. “It will be a very serious blow when a large European country doesn’t gain the right to sign this agreement for absolutely farfetched reasons,” Azarov said. “That won’t be saying that Ukraine’s leadership doesn’t want integration. It’s the European politicians who will face responsibility for this.”

Meanwhile, the mission led by former Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski and former European Parliament Chair Pat Cox will conclude today in what’s likely to be its final visit to Ukraine, the Kommersant-Ukrayina newspaper reported.

Its goal of convincing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to provide the means to release former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko from prison has yet to be achieved. The EU leadership expects “fundamental decisions” by April 19 from the Ukrainian government on Tymoshenko, imprisoned former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and Serhiy Vlasenko, Tymoshenko’s defense attorney who was evicted from parliament, the newspaper reported, citing an anonymous EU source.

The Kwasniewski-Cox mission’s results will be reviewed on April 22 during a meeting of the foreign ministers of EU member-states, an anonymous EU source told Kommersant. The report will help the European Commission determine whether to forward the Association Agreement for approval to the European Council.