Ukraine to sign EU agreement during Poland’s presidency?

The deal would include “an agreement for a free trade zone” between the ex-Soviet state and the 27 nation bloc, said Ukraine’s foreign minister Kostyantyn Hryshchenko said this week.

At a joint press conference attended by Polish and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Kiev on Monday, Poland’s head of diplomacy Radek Sikorski said that “We want to ensure that during the upcoming Polish presidency of the EU [Ukraine’s relations with the EU] takes another leap forward.”

However an EU-Ukraine summit to hammer out the deal, which was going to take place this September, has been put back to December, prompting a ‘high ranking official’ to tell the Kommersant-Ukraina newspaper last month that, “I'm not sure that we will be able to finalize taks”.

An EU official told the same newspaper that Brussels suspects Ukraine of playing ‘double-bluff’ with both the EU and Russia, which Kiev wants to conclude a customs agreement with.

Poland’s six-month presidency begins on 1 July. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on a recent trip to the Balkans that he hopes to conclude accession talks with Croatia this year as well. (pg)