The European Commission has said that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov 2qw incorrect when he said that Ukraine could simultaneously join the Customs Union and create a deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA) with the EU.

John Clancy, EU Trade Spokesperson for EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, made a respective comment to Interfax-Ukraine, while responding to a written request regarding a recent article by Lavrov, in which he stated that view.

"Both the DCFTA and the Customs Union are about trade liberalization between partners, which is good. However, there is a major difference between the FTA and Customs Unions – in the latter, a member loses its trade sovereignty, as a Customs Union goes further than an FTA," Clancy said.

He said that membership of the Customs Union entails a common external trade policy.

"For example, any EU member state cannot conclude an FTA with Russia or Ukraine on its own: it has lost its trade sovereignty, now handled at the EU level, exactly like Ukraine would lose its trade sovereignty if it were to be a member of any Customs Union. So, Minister Lavrov is incorrect in his statement," he said.

In this regard, Clancy said that the EU considers that Ukraine is a country that has to decide on its own, but in full knowledge of the consequences of its choices.

He also said that Lavrov's comparison with the WTO was irrelevant.

"Even if the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan were to be fully in line with the WTO rules it would not change the facts described above," Clancy said.

In an article entitled "Russia-France, Russia-Europe: Partnership Horizons" in a special Russian-French edition of the Russia in Global Affairs magazine, which was published on the Web site of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Lavrov said that Ukraine could simultaneously join the Customs Union and create the FTA with the EU.

"All the more so that the integration of the Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan 'triplet,' which is open for accession of other partners as well, is based on the same four liberties and WTO principles as integration processes in the European Union. Therefore, it is strange that leaders of the European Commission state that Ukraine's membership of the Eurasian Customs Union will undercut the possibility to sign a free-trade agreement (FTA) with the EU by Kyiv. By the way, in our negotiations, Brussels is rather insistently trying to further liberalize trade with Russia (also known as the "WTO-plus"), and nobody is embarrassed by our membership of the Customs Union. It is important to avoid double standards, creation of ideological barriers on the way to extending and developing mutually beneficial trade and economic links," Lavrov wrote in the article.