EU, Ukraine trade pact poised to fall through in Vilnius

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovich failed on Thursday, November 28 to salvage an ambitious free-trade pact with the European Union despite a warning that Ukraine was risking its future by turning its back on the deal, according to Reuters.

Ukraine and the 28-nation EU had aimed to sign an ambitious trade and cooperation agreement at Thursday's summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, which would have marked a historic westwards shift by the former Soviet republic away from Russia's orbit.

But Yanukovich renounced plans last week to sign the agreement in favour of closer ties with Russia, dealing a blow to the EU's efforts to build closer relations with former Soviet republics.

Yanukovich still flew in for the meeting - held to discuss the EU's four-year-old outreach program for Ukraine and five other east European countries.

He detailed Ukraine's economic woes at the meeting with EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron, citing high prices Ukraine has to pay for natural gas from Russia.

Yanukovich proposed starting three-way talks between Russia, Ukraine and the EU and urged Brussels to help Ukraine soften the terms of a possible loan from the International Monetary Fund, an EU diplomat said.

But the EU rejected trilateral talks and said Yanukovich must give a commitment to sign the agreement that he refused to give.

"He had to make that leap of faith that he wasn't prepared to make," the diplomat said.

Merkel said she had no hope that the EU and Ukraine would reach agreement at the Vilnius summit, which ends on Friday, but she said the door remained open to Ukraine.