The European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement is a European Union association agreement between the European Union (EU), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), Ukraine and the EU's 28 member states at the time (which are separate parties in addition to the EU and Euratom). It establishes a political and economic association between the parties. The agreement entered into force on 1 September 2017; previously parts had been provisionally applied. The parties committed to co-operate and converge economic policy, legislation, as well as regulation across a broad range of areas, including equal rights for workers, steps towards visa-free movement of people, the exchange of information and staff in the area of justice, the modernisation of Ukraine's energy infrastructure and access to the European Investment Bank (EIB). The parties committed to regular summit meetings and meetings among ministers, other officials and experts. The agreement furthermore establishes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area between the parties.
The agreement commits Ukraine to economic, judicial and financial reforms to converge its policies and legislation to those of the European Union. Ukraine commits to gradually conform to EU technical and consumer standards. The EU agrees to provide Ukraine with political and financial support, access to research and knowledge, and preferential access to EU markets. The agreement commits both parties to promote a gradual convergence toward the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and European Defence Agency policies.
The agreement comes after more than two decades in which both parties sought to establish closer ties with each other. On the one hand, the European Union wants to ensure that its imports of grain and natural gas from Ukraine, as well as its exports of goods to Ukraine, are not threatened by instability in the region, believing that instability could eventually be reduced through sociopolitical and economic reforms in Ukraine. Ukraine, on the other hand, wants to increase its exports by benefiting from free trade with the European Union while attracting desirable external investments, as well as establishing closer ties with a sociopolitical entity to which many Ukrainians feel strong cultural connection. Western Ukraine is found to be generally more enthusiastic about EU membership than Eastern Ukraine.
The political provisions of the treaty were signed on 21 March 2014 after a series of events that had stalled its ratification culminated in a revolution in Ukraine and overthrow of the then incumbent president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. This ousting was sparked by Yanukovych's last-minute refusal to sign the agreement. Russia, Ukraine's second largest trading partner, instead presented an association with the existing Customs Union of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as an alternative. After 21 March 2014, matters relating to trade integration were temporarily set aside (awaiting the results of the 25 May 2014 Ukrainian presidential elections) until the European Union and the new Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko signed the economic part of the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement on 27 June 2014, and described this as Ukraine's "first but most decisive step" towards EU membership.
Titles III, V, VI and VII, and the related Annexes and Protocols of the Agreement have been provisionally applied since 1 November 2014, while Title IV has been applied from 1 January 2016, as far as the provisions concern EU competences. Provisions formally came into force on 1 September 2017 following ratification of the Agreement by all signatories.
Provisions
The agreement requires regular summits between the president of the European Council and the president of Ukraine. Members of the Council of the European Union and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine must also meet regularly, as well as members of the European Parliament and the Ukrainian Parliament, and other officials and experts from both parties.
The agreement also commits both parties to cooperate and converge policy, legislation, and regulation across a broad range of areas. These include: equal rights for workers, steps towards visa-free movement of people, the exchange of information and staff in the area of justice, the modernisation of Ukraine's energy infrastructure, access to the European Investment Bank, and a variety of others.
The agreement also commits Ukraine to an agenda of economic, judicial and financial reforms and to gradual approximation of its policies and legislation to those of the European Union. Ukraine has also committed to take steps to gradually conform to technical and consumer standards upheld by the European Union. In exchange, the European Union will provide Ukraine with political and financial support, access to research and knowledge, and preferential access to EU markets. The agreement also commits both parties to promote a gradual convergence in the area of foreign and security policy, specifically the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and policies set forth by the European Defence Agency.
Ukraine will also ensure that its relevant national bodies participate fully in the European and international organisations for standardisation, legal and fundamental metrology, and conformity assessment including accreditation in accordance with its area of activity and the membership status available to it.
Ukraine will also progressively transpose the corpus of European standards (EN) as national standards, including the harmonised European standards. Simultaneously with such transposition, Ukraine will withdraw conflicting national standards, including its application of interstate standards (GOST/ГОСТ), developed before 1992. In addition, Ukraine will progressively fulfill the other conditions for membership, in line with the requirements applicable to full members of the European Standardisation Organisations.
Ukraine will approximate its sanitary and phytosanitary and animal welfare legislation to that of the EU.
Trade
The parties will progressively establish a free trade area known as the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) over a transitional period of a maximum of 10 years starting from the entry into force of the agreement.
Each party will reduce or eliminate customs duties on originating goods of the other party. Ukraine will eliminate customs duties on imports for certain worn clothing and other worn articles. Both parties will not institute or maintain any customs duties, taxes or other measures having an equivalent effect imposed on, or in connection with, the exportation of goods to the territory of each other. Existing customs duties or measures having equivalent effect applied by Ukraine will be phased out over a transitional period. Each party is restricted from maintaining, introducing or reintroducing export subsidies or other measures with equivalent effect on agricultural goods destined for the territory of the other party.
The parties will establish an expert-level Dialogue on Trade Remedies as a forum for cooperation in trade remedies matters. The Dialogue will seek to enhance a party's knowledge and understanding of the other party's trade remedy laws, policies and practices; improve cooperation between the parties' authorities having responsibility for trade remedies matters; discuss international developments in the area of trade defence; and to cooperate on any other trade remedies matter.
The parties will strengthen their cooperation in the field of technical regulations, standards, metrology, market surveillance, accreditation and conformity assessment procedures with a view to increase mutual understanding of their respective systems and facilitate access to their respective markets. In their cooperation, the parties will seek to identify, develop and promote trade-facilitating initiatives which may include: the reinforcement of regulatory cooperation through the exchange of information, experience and data; scientific and technical cooperation, with a view to improve the quality of their technical regulations, standards, testing, market surveillance, certification, and accreditation, and making efficient use of regulatory resources; promote and encourage cooperation between their respective organisations, public or private, responsible for metrology, standardisation, testing, market surveillance, certification and accreditation; foster the development of the quality infrastructure for standardisation, metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment and the market surveillance system in Ukraine; promote Ukrainian participation in the work of related European organisations; and seek solutions to trade barriers that may arise; coordinate their positions in international trade and regulatory organisations such as the WTO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE).
Ukraine will take the necessary measures in order to gradually achieve conformity with EU technical regulations and EU standardisation, metrology, accreditation, conformity assessment procedures and the market surveillance system, and undertakes to follow the principles and practices laid down in relevant EU Decisions and Regulations. For this purpose Ukraine will:
- incorporate the relevant EU acquis into its legislation;
- make the administrative and institutional reforms that are necessary to implement the association agreement and the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ACAA); and
- provide the effective and transparent administrative system required for the implementation of these matters.
While work on signing a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement between Ukraine and the EU first began in 1999, formal negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the EU Trade Commissioner were not launched until 18 February 2008. As of May 2011 there remained three outstanding issues to be resolved in the free trade deal: quotas on Ukrainian grain exports, access to the EU's services market and geographical names of Ukrainian commodities. Aside from these issues, the deal was ready. Despite those outstanding issues, Ukraine was ready to sign the agreement as it stood. Although it wanted stronger wording on enlargement prospects and access to the EU market for its truckers, Ukraine had more than many other candidates at the equivalent stage of the process. The finalised agreement was initialed on 19 July 2012. Ratification of the DCFTA, like the AA, has been stalled by the EU over concerns over the rule of law in Ukraine. This includes the application of selective justice, as well as amending electoral laws. As a result, the role of Ukrainian oligarchs in sanctioning the agreement was also questioned.
If Ukraine were to choose the agreement, the Eurasian Economic Commission's Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia would withdraw from free trade agreements with the country, according to Russian presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev. However, on 21 November 2013, a Ukrainian government decree suspended preparations for signing the agreement that was scheduled to be signed during a 28–29 November 2013 EU summit in Vilnius, and it was not signed. The decision to put off signing the association agreement led to 2014 Ukrainian revolution.
Background
Ukraine
Beginning in the late 18th century most of Ukraine was first part of the Russian Empire. Afterwards, Western Ukraine was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then passed to the Second Polish Republic until the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. Ukraine then joined the Soviet Union (both the Russian SFSR and the Ukrainian SSR united into the Soviet Union from 1922) until Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union on 24 August 1991. Independent Ukraine (since 1991) originally maintained strong ties with Russia, and as such Ukraine's economy became integrated with the Russian economy.
Before signing the treaty, about a third of Ukraine's foreign trade was with the European Union (EU); another third was with Russia.
European Union
The European Coal and Steel Community was constituted in 1952, consisting of six Western European countries. This would lead to the European Union in 1992 as central powers increased, and membership increase reached 28 by 2013. The Union has a common market, and has amongst others the competency to conclude trade agreements. The Union only has competence transferred to it from its member states, and thus when a treaty includes areas where it has no competence, the member states become a party to the treaty alongside the Union.
History
On 22 July 2008, it was announced that a "Stabilisation and Association"-type agreement would be signed between Ukraine and the European Union. However, in 2011 the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, warned Ukraine that although talks about a European Union Association Agreement with Ukraine would continue, the ratification process of the treaty "will face problems if there is no reversal in the approach of Ukrainian authorities" towards the trial of former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko. The association agreement has to be ratified by all member states and the European Parliament for the document to take effect. The sentencing of Tymoshenko to seven years in prison on 11 October 2011 was met with national and international protest and threatened Ukraine–European Union relations. Tymoshenko herself stated that her imprisonment should not stop the European Union from establishing closer ties with Ukraine. The signing of an association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, although finalised, was postponed on 19 December 2011. According to a joint statement by Ukraine and the EU adopted on a Ukraine-EU Summit, the ratification of the treaty depended on Ukraine's "respect for common values and the rule of law with an independent judiciary". The European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Štefan Füle, stated on 27 February 2012 that he "hoped" the association agreement would be initialed within a month and he "saw" it would be signed next autumn. He also noted "the need for action in six key areas" (mainly juridical reform and democratic freedoms). On 29 February 2012 the European People's Party demanded the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko, Yuriy Lutsenko and other political prisoners, and insisted that the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union should not be signed and ratified until these demands were met.
Initial steps
The EU Association Agreement (AA) was initialed on 30 March 2012 in Brussels. The treatment and sentencing (considered by EU leaders as a politically motivated trial) of former Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko had strained the relations between the EU and Ukraine. The European Union and several of its member states, notably Germany, had pressured Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich and his Azarov Government to halt the detention of Tymoshenko in fear of her degrading health. Several meetings with Yanukovich had been deserted by EU leaders, including the German president Joachim Gauck.
At the request of opposition politicians in Ukraine, EU government officials boycotted the UEFA Euro 2012 championship in Ukraine. EU leaders suggested that the AA, and the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, could not be ratified unless Ukraine addressed concerns over a "stark deterioration of democracy and the rule of law", including the imprisonment of Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko in 2011 and 2012.