Ukraine Named Its Price for WTO Entry
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has announced the official date of Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization: February 7, 2008. Ukraine does not intend to block Russia's way. There has long been an agreement that the first to accede would not impede the second. But Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has named the main item of negotiation between the countries now that his has obtained its new status. He proposed at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Russia return to the 1993 free trade agreement with Ukraine, which almost fully eliminated customs duties between the countries.
On June 24, 1993, presidents Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine signed a package of agreements, including one on free trade. By today's standards, it was extraordinarily liberal, and reminiscent of the agreements reached among European Union states in the 1980s. The agreement was initialed but never ratified by the State Duma due to disagreements over other documents in that package, such as one liberalizing natural gas trade between the countries. Until 2002, Russia and Ukraine discussed exceptions to the ungratified free trade agreement. The number of exemptions had reached 2000 item headings by the mid-1990s.
Yushchenko also said import-export quotas on a number of items, such as sugar, alcohol and tobacco “might be reconsidered.” Such considerations have also been underway since the mid-1990s, behind closed doors. But the free trade agreement should be implemented first, Yushchenko said, because it hinders the economic potential of the CIS.
Russia has already reoriented itself toward a customs union within the Eurasian Economic Community. In 2002, the Russian Economic Development and Trade Ministry declared the free trade agreement with Ukraine to be not in the interests of either country. The Duma is almost certain to reject that agreement, but Ukraine's negotiating position become much stronger after February 7.
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All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 29, 2008
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