Putin’s aide: Discussion of EU-Ukraine AA after signing

Discussion of an association between Ukraine and the EU after they have signed the Association Agreement (AA) is far from the very fruitful way of action, President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.
Ukraine will round up the process of concluding the AA June 27 when it signs the economic bloc of the document. The signing ceremony will take place June 27 on the sidelines of the EU summit.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Wednesday trilateral consultations involving Russia, the EU and Ukraine will be held at the level of economics and trade ministers in Brussels July 11. They will discuss the impact of the practical implementation of the AA.
“By tradition, Russia is prepared to hold this dialogue but there’s no doubt post factum discussions of anything are not the most fruitful way to act,” Peskov told the liberal pro-European Dozhd TV channel.
As he spoke about the measures Russia would have to take after the economic provisions of the AA went into effect, Peskov recalled that Vladimir Putin had specified them more than once and hence there was no need to repeat them.
“Russia has said many a time it regrets the Brussels’ unwillingness and unpreparedness to discuss a possible bad aftermath of some provisions of the AA at a conference table,” he said.
A source at the European Commission told Itar-Tass earlier Russia and Ukraine hoped to discuss at the trilateral level the issues of practical implementation of the free trade agreement between Brussels and Kiev.
Since the beginning of the year, Russia and the EU have held two rounds of bilateral technical consultations on the issue.
Russia’s Economics Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, who is expected to take part in the trilateral meeting on behalf of Russia, told Itar-Tass earlier Moscow will propose a discussion of two groups of problems related to the AA.
The first group includes the extra risks arising from the uncontrollable imports in the wake of introduction of European technical regulations and the problem of imports from third countries. Russia expects the EU and Kiev’s ability to guarantee “some customs protection measures against re-imports from third countries.”
The second group is related to a big amount of agreements between Ukraine, Russia and other countries of the CIS on technological regimentation, veterinary, and pharmacology, as all of them have direct bearing on the security and health of rank-and-file people, Ulyukayev said.
Russian Foreign Minister issued a warning Wednesday which said if Moscow would take protective steps envisioned by the rules of the World Trade Organization if it saw that the EU’s association agreements with Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova were producing the aftermaths deplorable for the CIS free trade area.
“The main thing is that as soon as the treaties, which our partners in the CIS free trade area are going to sign with the EU, take effect and we see that they are wielding bad impact on the functioning of CIS free trade, we’ll certainly take protective steps then in full compliance with WTO regulations and with observance of terms of our membership,” Lavrov said.