KIEV, June 1 (RIA Novosti) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has assured European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso that the new model of cooperation between Ukraine and the Eurasian Economic Union is not in conflict with Ukraine’s WTO membership or its strategic course of Euro-integration, the presidential press service said on Saturday.
“Viktor Yanukovych informed Jose Manuel Barroso about the agreements that were signed to deepen Ukraine’s collaboration with the Eurasian Economic Commission,” the press service said, adding that the Ukrainian leader and the EC president had spoken by telephone on Friday.
“He assured [Barroso] that the new cooperation model… does not contravene Ukraine’s strategic course of Euro-integration via the signing of an association agreement and the creation of a comprehensive zone of free trade with the EU.”
Yanukovych and Barroso discussed the prospects for the signing of an EU-Ukraine Association Agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius in November and Ukraine’s progress in meeting the EU standards.
On Friday, Ukraine signed a memorandum to deepen cooperation with the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, but stopped short of gaining observer status.
Ukraine, which has few energy resources of its own, relies heavily on gas imports from Russia. The 2009 gas deal signed between Moscow and Kiev tied the price for Russian gas to international oil prices, which have risen significantly since 2009, increasing Ukraine's bill. Russia has said on numerous occasions that it could cut gas prices for its neighbor if Ukraine joins the Customs Union.
Ukraine has been reluctant to join the union because doing so might prevent it from clinching a free-trade agreement with the European Union.
On December 18, 2011, leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed an agreement to create the Eurasian Economic Commission, a new supranational body to manage economic integration of the three former Soviet republics. The Customs Union came into effect the following month.
Then-President Medvedev said in his state-of-the-nation address to both houses of parliament on December 22, 2011, that Russia intended to intensify economic integration in the post-Soviet space and expected the Eurasian Economic Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan to come into existence by 2015.
