EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Vice President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton hopes that Ukraine and the EU will manage to move forward towards the signature of the Association Agreement, which could take place during the Eastern Partnership Summit in November 2013.
"I really hope that we will manage to interact with Ukraine, as we want to move forward together with it so as to sign the agreement. I know that a lot of people in Ukraine would like to see this happen, and I hope that we will be able to do it," she said at a press conference in Brussels on Monday after a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
Asked why the EU Council's conclusions on Ukraine do not mention former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and former Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, Ashton stressed that the approved conclusions "contain our clear expectations – moving towards the possibility to sign the Association Agreement during the summit next year."
"But we also remain very clear with Ukraine on the issues that we have raised many times and will continue to do so. This is not about personalities, no matter how important they were, it is about other things, and it is about the judicial system," she said.
