Rada passed 30 critical bills for EU integration, deputy PM says

The People’s Servant parliamentary faction, having
formed the majority and the cabinet, has led the Rada in approving nearly 30
critically important bills for EU integration since its work began in
September, said on Feb. 6 Dmytro Kuleba, the deputy prime minister for European
and Euro-Atlantic integration. “These were laws that for years were not
approving owing to schemes, backroom agreements. This was what had been too
complicated and impossible. For me, that’s much more important than reflexes
regarding what our Euro-integration tactics should be,” he said in an interview
with the hromadske.ua news site. With his “reflexes” reference, Kuleba was
referring to comments made at the World Economic Summit in Davos by David
Arakhamia, the head of the People’s Servant parliamentary
faction, complaining about pressure on Ukraine to harmonize its legislation
with the EU. Ukraine needs to become economically stronger before it can
synchronize its legislation, he said.

EU officials indicated their reluctance to amend the
Ukraine-EU free trade agreement at the Sixth Ukraine-EU Association Council on
Jan. 28, said Nazar Bobytskiy, the former director of the economic department
of Ukraine’s representative to the EU. It was the first council meeting
attended by officials from the new cabinet led by Prime Minister Oleksiy
Honcharuk. “The Council demonstrated that the European Union is increasingly
entering a position of strategic defense, and this trend on the whole will
complicate Kyiv’s ability to accomplish its established ambitious tasks, in the
economic and trade sphere above all,” Bobitskiy said in a column published on
Jan. 29 on the dt.ua news site. “The Council’s joint press release, as well as
signals of EU officials at their joint press conference, indicate that Brussels
considers the free trade zone with Ukraine as the single effective mechanism
for fulfilling the potential for mutual trade. The hopes of Kyiv to include in
the agenda issues on widening the opportunities of Ukrainian exporters
obviously were decisively rejected.” Recall, Kuleba has called for avoiding EU customs integration, Arakhamia
called for reviewing the conditions of harmonizing legislation and numerous
high-ranking state officials have called for reviewing the free trade area,
signed in June 2014.

Zenon Zawada: The
Zelensky administration remains committed to Euro-Atlantic integration. A key
question remains of whether it has the strategic ability to accomplish those
measures it is seeking that will make integration more beneficial for Ukraine,
particularly in the area of trade. Another key question is to what extent it
will allow the Russian Federation, and mutual attempts to end the warfare in
Donbas, to disrupt Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration goals. The events so far
under the Zelensky administration reveal a very delicate and volatile situation
that could easily unravel with careless steps.