Decision on SES delayed for a week

Ukraine’s government postponed considering draft documents on creating the Single Economic Space (SES) between Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan for one week. The decision was made by government members on September 10 unanimously, Minister for the Economy and European Integration Valery Khoroshkovsky announced, referring to the need to elaborate the documents after taking into account criticism from the Ministries of the Economy, Foreign Affairs, and Justice.

Wednesday’s second discussion of the issue (the first took place on September 3), according to Minister Khoroshkovsky, was “sharp,” and there were many critical observations regarding the drafts themselves, their compliance with Ukraine’s Constitution, laws, and international agreements. In the view of Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrinovych, the drafts contain “many standards” that conflict with Ukraine’s legislation and a number of clauses of the Constitution. “In this connection, we will prepare a clause-by-clause analysis,” he said. He also expressed his hope in the possibility of negotiations between the agreement participants to coordinate their stands “in conformity with Ukraine’s legislation.”

Minister of Foreign Affairs Kostiantyn Hryshchenko pointed out “the extreme importance of considering all aspects connected with this document... We have concrete ideas on this, and we, the three ministries, are going to work together.” When asked if it is possible to coordinate the documents before the Yalta summit scheduled for September 18-19 where the SES agreement is planned to be signed, Minister Hryshchenko said, “This is what we are working on: to answer this question.”

Simultaneously, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn stated that consideration in the parliament of the draft documents on forming the SES, prepared by the Cabinet of Ministers, was postponed from September 12 to this week because of the absence of First Vice Premier cum Finance Minister Mykola Azarov, head of the high level group on drawing up SES documents, who left for Cancun, Mexico, to attend the WTO session.