Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanyshyna announced plans to start an open dialogue on renewal of the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement at the end of July 2020.

"It is obvious that the demand for the development of Ukrainian export potential in the direction of the EU is increasing and is no longer within the framework of the trade conditions, which the Agreement contents. In particular, this is confirmed by the quick use of quotas for certain products, the need to remove technical barriers to trade, on customs liberalization and on the signing of the ACAA agreement [the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products]regarding sanitary and phytosanitary certification. All these trade barriers need to be removed. Therefore, the issue of the renewal of the agreement's trade part is obviously urgent," Stefanyshyna said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

The deputy prime minister said that at the moment the framework of the concept of renewing the Association Agreement has been formed, proposals are being collected, and then the authorities will publicly turn to business and civil society to hear their request.

"Obviously, we will talk about increasing quotas, on some issues we can talk about canceling quotas and switching to liberalization of the customs rate, its reduction to zero. Now I do not want to talk about specific positions, because it will be unfair and wrong, given that at the moment these are rather disproportionate desires. There are obvious moments somewhere when quotas are reduced very quickly, namely, honey, tomatoes, and there are new offers from the business somewhere, but this does not mean that this will be a priority. We plan to start the open dialogue on this issue at the end of July," Stefanyshyna said.