Ukraine advocates updating of trade section of Ukraine-EU Association Agreement – PM
Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk at a meeting with President of the European Council Charles Michel has said that Ukraine advocates the updating of the provisions of the trade section of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement (AA).
"The volume of bilateral trade in goods and services during the first nine months of 2019 increased 9.6% and reached $39.6 billion. Ukraine is using duty-free tariff quotas for the supply of products. It is obvious that the current parameters of the FTA provisions do not correspond to the real potential of our cooperation. In view of that, Ukraine stands for updating the provisions of the trade section of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. This is one of the key objectives in our relations for the coming years," Honcharuk said.
The prime minister also said that the main goals that Ukraine is planning to achieve in 2020 are as follows: to deepen sectoral integration with the EU in the energy and digital markets, to strengthen customs cooperation, expand and streamline trade, and to make Ukraine an integral part of the European Green Deal.
He said that Ukraine seeks to agree on concrete steps with the EU in order to boost bilateral trade. "We have identified as a core direction of our work to be the signing of the ACAA Agreement [the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products], the so-called industrial visa regime," the prime minister said.
The top officials also discussed cooperation on cybersecurity and counteraction to hybrid threats, as well as the signing of an updated European Common Aviation Area (ECAA) Agreement.
The Prime Minister said that Ukraine has high expectations of the Eastern Partnership Summit slated to be held in Brussels on June 20, 2020.
"Clear goals for cooperation between the EU and associated partners need to be defined. In this regard, we appeal to the EU with a request to support the joint initiative of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to launch an enhanced cooperation format with associated partners in the Eastern Partnership framework," Honcharuk said.
