Ukraine's cooperation with eastern partners is necessary from an economic point of view, but accession to the Customs Union is outside the law, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky has said.

"I see no problems that certain views are expressed on the need for cooperation with the Customs Union. As for the question of accession, it is outside the law," he said in Kyiv on Wednesday at a conference of the Ukrainian National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum.

"The legislation states that European integration is a foreign policy priority. The second point: as they say, nobody canceled the economy, and everybody gets hungry every day. This means that from an economic point of view, we cannot currently end this story, experience and developments in the economic sphere with our eastern partners," he said

Khoroshkovsky said it would be shortsighted to do so. He also said that Ukraine was trying with "to develop good neighborly relations" with all of its neighbors.

However, he noted that there were aspects, especially when it comes to energy policy, which must be take into account in foreign policy.