The visa-free dialogue between Kyiv and Brussels has entered a new stage

Today a meeting of the Council on Cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union will take place in Luxembourg. At this event, Brussels will remind Kyiv of its problems, including the need to respect democratic freedoms. The progress of the visa-free dialogue between Ukraine and the EU will also be discussed. Kommersant has obtained the EU “questionnaire,” a document regulating negotiations in this area.

The Cooperation Council is the highest working body coordinating the negotiation process between Ukraine and the European Union, and at its annual meetings key documents are often approved. Thus, in June 2009, Brussels handed over to Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko the text of the “Agenda for the Ukraine-EU Association.”

As of today, there are no plans to sign or agree on documents of such importance, a Kommersant source in the European Commission claims. “Nevertheless, this meeting is very important for us. After all, this will be our first working contact with Kiev at a high level after the change of power in Ukraine, not counting the familiarization visit of Viktor Yanukovych, which took place immediately after the inauguration (March 1.—Kommersant),”— Kommersant's interlocutor said.

The agenda for the upcoming negotiations has not been made public, but Brussels claims that the situation with respect for democratic freedoms in Ukraine, in particular freedom of speech, will definitely be discussed. In Kyiv, they are determined to talk primarily about economic issues. “At the summit, I want to state our position, reveal the program of reforms that Ukraine is embarking on. We have something to say to the Europeans,” said Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who heads the Ukrainian delegation, at the end of last week.

A separate topic for discussion will be the progress of the visa-free dialogue. Signing a road map for a visa-free regime is the main goal of Kyiv in preparing for the autumn Ukraine-EU summit. Last week, Minister of Justice Alexander Lavrynovych claimed that by the end of June Brussels would submit to Kyiv a “visa dialogue form” - a document regulating the direction of negotiations when drawing up a draft road map. However, yesterday the Ministry of Justice and the European Commission confirmed to Kommersant that the questionnaire had already been received and was being processed.

Kommersant has obtained the text of this document. It contains 40 questions regarding the state of national legislation, plans to solve existing problems and guaranteeing the timing of the adoption of the necessary regulations. The questionnaire items are divided into four blocks: document security, illegal migration and readmission, public order, international relations.

The requirements for Ukraine are clear from the wording of the EU questions. Kyiv should stop issuing old-type passports (with a photo pasted in) and set a deadline for the validity of those already issued. Now old foreign passports are issued at Ukrainian consular offices abroad, as well as in the country for urgent processing of documents. According to EU representatives, the issuance of so-called “new foreign passports” should also be stopped in the future. In this regard, the Ukrainian side must indicate the deadline for the adoption of regulations regulating the transition to biometric passports.

Brussels also reminds Kyiv of the existence of many unfulfilled obligations in the field of ratification and implementation of international treaties to which Ukraine has acceded. Among other things, the government must report on its efforts and talk about plans to adopt regulations “in the area of combating financial abuse - money laundering and terrorist financing.”

One of the most important points of the document for Ukraine concerns the sphere of border management. Kyiv is obliged to submit to the European Commission a plan for “delimitation of the state border, including maritime sections.” This means that the roadmap for a visa-free regime will contain a requirement to complete negotiations with Russia on the delimitation of the Azov-Kerch water area and to complete the procedure for interstate approval of the Ukrainian-Belarusian state border agreement. As Kommersant reported, the dialogue between Kyiv and Minsk on this issue is blocked (see Kommersant of June 3).

The questionnaire notes that Ukraine must respond to the EU’s questions by July 31. After this, Kyiv will have to convince EU member states of the need to provide a road map. “Fulfilling all the requirements of the questionnaire does not mean that Ukraine will automatically be given a road map. But if we do not fulfill them, the negotiations are almost guaranteed to end in failure,” notes a Kommersant source at the Foreign Ministry. As is known, after the EU’s recent refusal to issue such a document to Russia, a number of Western European countries doubt the need to provide it to Ukraine.

Sergey Sidorenko

Ukraine fills out the form