Ukraine to sign entire Association Agreement with EU today

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk will sign today what is practically the entire Ukraine-EU Association Agreement, including its political and trade portions, reported the Ukrayinska Pravda news site on March 21, citing its sources within the EU and Ukrainian governments. The EU leadership had announced last week that the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area would be signed separately from the political portion. However, that could not have been done because the two sections are interdependent. Moreover, separate sections would have required separate ratifications by the 28 EU member-states, which could make the agreement easier for Russia to derail, the report said.

To solve the problem, diplomats agreed to sign a conclusive act to serve as a surrogate for the trade portion, whose conditions will be further adjusted, Pravda reported. “The so-called ‘economic sections’ won’t be signed again obviously,” the report said. “Instead when the EU agrees on the ‘final signing” of the Association Agreement, some technical document will again be signed, similar to the current ‘conclusive act’.” This second signing could occur in the absence of leaders on a technical level, or by exchanging the documents. Yet when the Association Agreement will require the Ukrainian parliament’s ratification, it will consist of the “conclusive act” as a surrogate for the trade portion.

This method of postponing the Free Trade Area is being done to appease the Russian government and southeastern Ukrainian regions, which are concerned about their lost mutual trade, Pravda reported. Creating the Free Trade Area would give the Kremlin and Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces ample ammunition for the current presidential election campaign. At the same time, certain European politicians are considering scrapping the Free Trade Area altogether to appease Russia, the report said. 

Zenon Zawada: The postponing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area implies one of two things: either those who negotiated it from the Ukrainian side during the last several years failed to take into account the concerns of Ukraine’s heavy industry (based in the southeast), or both the EU and Ukrainian governments are capitulating to Russian pressure. Either way, it’s a bad omen because we’re confident that the pro-Russian forces won’t be satisfied with any Free Trade Area that’s produced, and will continue to abuse this agreement for its narrow political ends.

It will be a worse omen if the Free Trade Area isn’t launched by the year’s end, which increases the likelihood it will never be signed. Recall, the EU agreedto unilaterally open its markets to Ukrainian goods since June 1 to Nov. 1, 2014, thus implicitly assuming that the Free Trade Area will start working as of November.