Top Parliamentary Diplomat: Ukraine Decision a Setback
The chairman of the Estonian Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Marko Mihkelson, has called Ukraine's decision Thursday to halt preparations for signing the deep and comprehensive free trade and association agreement with the EU a setback.
He said it would hurt integration with Europe and the Eastern Partnership as a whole.
"As late as mid-October, President Viktor Yanukovich said on a visit to Tallinn that he would sign the agreement and signaled that the Tymoshenko issue would be resolved. Now, in the last month, a serious turn toward Russia has taken place," he told uudised.err.ee.
He said: "time will tell whether the decision was based on an offer that couldn't be refused" or whether Ukraine had decided to follow a delicate course between Russia and Europe.
"In any case, we lost from this decision, as a free trade agreement would have meant more opportunities for Estonian business people."
"Russia naturally wants Kyiv to join the Customs Union and then the Eurasian Union. The EU should review its ranks and think seriously about what went wrong," he said.