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Ukraine and European Union sign the political part of association Agreement

The trade and economic bloc is next

KIEV, March 21. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine and the European Union have agreed to finish all the formalities required for the conclusion of the trade and economic part of the association Agreement with EU as early as possible and get down to its practical implementation, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Friday.

The Ministry noted that the European Union had shown its solidarity with Ukraine by signing a political part of the association agreement, “which fixes Ukraine’s choice in favour of European values and democracy.”

“The event became a historical landmark in developing bilateral relations on the principles of political association and economic integration,” the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stressed.

The political bloc of Ukraine’s association agreement with the European Union was signed on the sidelines of the two-day EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, were the first to sign the agreement. After that, Ukraine’s parliament-appointed Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk put his signature under the document followed by the heads of state and government of the 28 EU member states in alphabetical order.

The association agreement between Ukraine, on the one hand, and the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community and their member states on the other hand, was initially planned to be concluded at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, on November 28-29, 2013. However, the government of the then Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov had stopped all work on the document a week before the Vilnius summit, causing mass protest actions by Ukraine’s opposition that later grew into fierce clashes with police and , eventually, changed power in Ukraine.

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