European Commission Promises Ukraine Better Trade Terms with EU
The Ukrainian government is working with the European Commission to avoid a return to the trade regime that was in place until 2022.
The Gaze reports on this with reference to European Pravda.
If no new EU decision is made by 5 June, the provisions of the Association Agreement will be restored by default, which, according to experts, could lead to a significant reduction in Ukrainian exports to the EU.
In this case, the losses for the Ukrainian economy are estimated at $1.5 billion, or almost 4% of total exports, according to a study by Veronika Movchan (Institute for Economic Research) and Ricardo Giucci (Berlin Economics).
However, the European Commission strongly supports maintaining and improving the trade regime.
In particular, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen assured during talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on 9 April that the new EU-Ukraine trade parameters would be better than those in force until 2022.
As noted, this is to be achieved by revising the current free trade regime in accordance with Article 29 of the Association Agreement.
The Ukrainian side emphasises that the format of the future agreement is not important. The main thing is to maintain and enhance the access of Ukrainian goods to the European market.
‘For us, it does not matter much what kind of cover the future trade regime between Ukraine and the EU will be written under. Whether it will be autonomous preferences, as it has been until now, or a free trade regime expanded in accordance with Article 29, we are interested in the principled result, not in ‘checkers’, the government said.
On 13 May 2024, after a long and tense negotiation process, the EU Council approved the extension of preferential trade with Ukraine for another year - until 5 June 2025.
Regarding the future format of Ukraine's trade relations with the EU, preliminary agreements were reached that the duty-free trade conditions will be integrated into the Association Agreement with the EU.
As The Gaze reported earlier, the European Commission is finalising a proposal on future trade relations with Ukraine, ahead of the expiry of the current autonomous trade measures, also known as the ‘trade visa-free regime’, on 5 June 2025.