Ukraine will become an associate member of the European Union on June 27, President Petro Poroshenko said at a meeting with representatives of local self-government bodies and other state authorities on Wednesday.
“Ukraine will become a full-fledged EU associate member in the presence of leaders of the EU states in Brussels on June 27,” Poroshenko said.
The Ukrainian president will visit Brussels where he will sign an economic part of Ukraine’s association treaty with the EU, presidential press service said.
European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Fule visited Kiev on June 19-20 to continue preparations for signing the economic part of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine.
The Association Agreement is to be signed in Brussels on June 27. Ukrainian leaders will not attend the upcoming EU summit, which is not open to third countries. But they will be invited to a separate signing ceremony where the EU will sign the Association Agreements with Moldova and Georgia.
In April, Ukraine signed the political part of the agreement with the EU, which makes up about 2% of the document. The remaining 98% deal with the creation of a free trade zone between the EU and Ukraine, which will basically mean the opening up of the Ukrainian market to European goods since Ukrainian industrial commodities cannot compete on European markets: there is no demand for the defence industry’s products as EU countries are adopting NATO standards, and agricultural produce can hardly make their way to the saturated European market where even EU countries have to observe production quotas.