The initialing of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement is just the beginning, experts say

The initialing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU might be the last stage adoption, and it would be a great loss for the country. This statement was discussed at the press conference “Association Agreement: how many steps should be made from initialing to its signing?” held on March 30 in Kyiv. It was organized by the Civic Expert Council with the support of the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.

“Initialing means the final approval of the Agreement, the parties will wrap up negotiations and will not review the agreed text of the document any more. In addition, the document starts routine preparation procedure for signing the Agreement, it implies its translation into all official EU languages. However, the political decision will be taken separately and will require a political green light from the governments of all member countries,” Oleksandr Sushko, research director of the Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, explained.

“We should make two fundamental steps to make the AA come into force: to put into effect the windy talks of authorities about the choice of the key European integration direction. Teetering between corporate, personal, tactical interests and national strategic interest, we should choose the latter – the European way, which is now supported by most of Ukrainians, almost all political parties, and has no realistic alternative,” Valeriy Chaly, Deputy Director General of the Razumkov Center, said.

Open statement of Ukrainian community of experts to the leadership of Ukraine and the EU regarding access to the text of the Agreement including all annexes was also promulgated during the press conference. “Access to the text of the Agreement will provide an opportunity for well reasoned lobbying and awareness-raising activities as for the European aspirations of Ukraine. The latest polls demonstrate of such activities,” the authors emphasize.

The expert analysis, conducted by Ukrainian think tanks, is also useful for Ukrainian business, as it will enable internal reforms’ implementation before the trading part of the agreement (DCFTA) comes into force. It will also facilitate information provision on the important sectoral reforms to be made by the Ukrainian government.

The experts also sounded a note of warning if the text of AA is not available, in particular: encouraging various stakeholders to distort the content of the Agreement and present it in a negative light, raising the risk that individual provisions of the Agreement will deliberately be published in the press out of context, lobbying withdrawal of its signing.

The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU was initialed on March 30 in Brussels.

Civic Expert Council
+38 067 232 69 23
youkraine.eu@gmail.com

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The essential role of the European Program lies in promotion of Ukraine’s European integration, combining external pressure of the EU with the domestic one of the Ukrainian civil society, and thus contributing to promotion of open society values in Ukraine.