Ukraine seeking membership of EU

From Boris Hudyma, Financial times, June 13, 1998

Sir, Recently, some western newspapers, including the Financial Times ("Doubts cast over Ukraine's fitness for WTO", June 11), have published articles asserting that Ukraine is turning away from the west. But in fact, while maintaining good economic ties with Russia, Ukraine's policy is aimed at developing a wider and deeper relationship with the European Union. This policy was pursued since independence in 1991, but it became more persistent from 1994 when the partnership and co-operation agreement (PCA) between Ukraine and EU was signed.

With this agreement coming into force on March 1 Ukraine's striving for closer ties with the EU has become stronger.

The new proof of this is the first Ukraine-EU Co-operation Council which took place in Luxembourg on June 8-9. A broad range of issues on co-operation in political, economic, science and technology fields, as well as Chernobyl-related issues were discussed. A joint working program of the PCA implementation was approved, and it was agreed to create a number of subcommittees in certain fields in the framework of the co-operation committee.

But the most important event of the meeting was the statement of the head of Ukrainian delegation, prime minister of Ukraine V. Pustovoitenko, which contained an official political application of the Ukrainian government to the European Union for associate membership in the EU. He expressed as well Ukraine's intention to become full-fledged member of the EU in the long-term.

In the opinion of the participants this meeting has launched a new stage of bilateral relations and gave impetus to their further development. Unfortunately, this event was overlooked by the FT.