“Association Agreement is the result of work of several governments, lots of ministries and departments. The Agreement was initialed in July 2012 and since then none of the letters, dots or commas were changed,” stressed the Committee Chair Hryhorii Nemyria. “Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova signed the Agreement on July 27. Moldova and Georgia have already ratified it. In this period, it was ratified by Romania, Lithuania and Latvia on the part of the EU. Unfortunately, as of today, there is no Presidential submission, regarding ratification of the Agreement, in the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.”
According to him, “Association Agreement is the civilizational choice of Ukrainian people.” “This is the issue of political responsibility before all Ukrainians. The President should without delay refer the Agreement to the Parliament for its further ratification. The European Parliament, Council of the EU and the European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule have called on Ukraine to promptly ratify the Agreement,” stressed Hryhorii Nemyria.
According to information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, the package of documents, necessary for submission by the President of Ukraine to the Parliament for ratification, is ready.
“We have received an approval of all ministries and departments,” said the Director of the European Union Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Vsevolod Chentsov.
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Valerii Chalyi claimed that he upholds ratification of the Agreement. However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has not yet provided the package of documents necessary for this.
“I stand for expediency of ratifying the Agreement. As soon as we receive the package of documents required, the President will sign the submission,” he said.
At the same time, Valerii Chalyi called on to postpone ratification for several months, since this will help the country save UAH 500 million.
“We will lose UAH 500 million, if the Agreement is ratified now. Ratification of the Agreement is symbolic for Ukraine, however these money are extremely important for our army and economy,” he said.
In this connection, Hryhorii Nemyria stressed that during the Committee’s meeting information was received that technically, the Agreement is ready for ratification by the Parliament.
“This will be Russia’s best special-forces raid – to defeat ratification of the Association Agreement,” said the Committee member Yurii Blahodyr.
According to the Head of the NGO Center UA, former Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine on matters of European Integration Oleh Rybachuk, “the Agreement needs to be ratified promptly.”
Committee members discussed the draft resolution on recommendation to the President of Ukraine to immediately refer ratification of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement (Reg. No. 4217a), and took the decision to recommend the Parliament approve this bill. They noted that the deadline for the President of Ukraine to submit the Agreement for ratification shall be August 12.