Tag: Customs Union

Armenia will join a customs union led by its former Soviet master Russia, the country’s President Serzh Sargsyan said yesterday (3 September), a move incompatible with the free trade agreement the EU is preparing with Yerevan.

Failure to sign an association agreement with Ukraine at a regional summit in November would be a blow for the EU’s Eastern Partnership initiative aimed at pulling six former Soviet republics closer to the EU, Lithuania’s foreign minister said. EurActiv reports from Vilnius.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich said his country planned to sign an Association Agreement with the EU in the course of 2013. But he also stressed that the country would develop its relations with Russia’s Custom’s Union in areas which do not contradict other “international obligations”. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the EU-Russia summit in Brussels later this month. But he will make sure his hosts welcome him as the representative of the Eurasian Union - Putin's pet geopolitical project, which bears similarities to the EU.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin made it clear that his country cannot advance negotiations on a new basic treaty with the EU, unless Brussels formalises relations with the so-called "Common Economic Space" - its Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. 

If no progress is made at the upcoming EU-Ukraine summit on a trade and association agreement, the country risks failing to democratise and falling into Russia's orbit, argues Vladimir Mishchenko.

The European Commission appears ready to seal a trade agreement with Ukraine by the end of the year, giving Kyiv a helping hand in countering Russia's growing pressure on the country. However, uncertainty remains high.

Russian and Ukrainian officials said their relationship with the EU could take the form of a customs union in the next 15 to 20 years, with Russia admitting it was willing to get closer to the Union "as far as possible," excluding only membership.

Viktor Yanukovich will meet European Union leaders next Monday on his first foreign trip as Ukraine's president, opting to visit Brussels before Russia, EU officials said on 23 February.

Ongoing reform in Turkey, spurred by the prospect of EU membership, is a must, argued Murat Yalçintas, the Turkish President of the Association of the Mediterranean Chambers of Commerce and Industry, in an interview with EurActiv.

On July 24, the Commission issued a call for the Member States' national customs authorities to devise and implement a common risk strategy at the Union's external borders.