European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin and Russian Minister for Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev could not come to a political agreement during the talks yesterday in Brussels on the practical solutions to Russia’s concerns related to the implementation of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) between the EU and Ukraine.
Commissioner Malmström said: “We spent 18 months in extensive discussions on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT), Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) rules and customs cooperation to accommodate Russia’s concerns. We were ready to make the efforts needed to reach a joint understanding. Therefore, I was deeply surprised by President Putin’s decree of 16 December 2015 that suspends all Russia’s obligations towards Ukraine in the framework of the CIS FTA. This measure goes against the mandate, the spirit and the objective of these talks.”
Russia’s continued insistence on a legally binding agreement, which would amount to a reopening of the bilateral agreement between the EU and Ukraine, could not be accommodated, as has been made clear throughout these talks. The Commissioner added that: “As has been conveyed from the beginning of the talks and reconfirmed by President Juncker last week the DCFTA cannot be amended – neither directly nor indirectly.”
