Top Ukrainian and EU officials expressed satisfaction Thursday with the progress the two sides have achieved in talks on a bilateral agreement. "The EU-Ukraine working relationship truly works," European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero Waldner said after talks at Brdo pri Kranju.
The agreement will hopefully become an important instrument that will bring Ukraine substantively closer to the EU and help it achieve the goal of membership in the bloc, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko told the press after the meeting.
Commissioner Waldner also congratulated Ukraine on its membership of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), noting that this was an "essential step which has and will open the way to the start of EU-Ukraine free trade negotiations."
Free trade negotiations are a part of the talks on the new agreement. They were launched in February, as Ukraine needed to join the WTO first.
The talks today also touched on the current situation in Ukraine, where the EU side agreed that the country had achieved exceptional progress.
"We heard information that make us optimistic. The assessments of the situation in Ukraine used to be critical, today they can be optimistic," said Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, the current chair of the EU's General Affairs and External Relations Council.
Yet Rupel as well as Waldner stressed the need for constitutional reforms, which they said were vital if Ukraine is to develop fast. The EU expects that "all political actors in Ukraine" will play a constructive part in these reforms, Waldner said.
Minister Ohryzko assured the constitutional reforms would be democratic. "This process...is a part of the normal democratic evolution."
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