Deal in doubt

Diplomats in Kyiv and Brussels have been working on an EU-Ukraine Association Agreement for more than four years. Finally, the document is on the table.

It includes a reference to "the European identity of Ukraine" - as requested by Kyiv - and a detailed framework for a free trade agreement.

The document was initially to be signed last December - but ongoing court cases against leading opposition politicians in Ukraine, which the EU considers politically motivated, led Brussels to postpone the deal.

But this Friday the two parties will initial the Association Agreement with a preliminary binding text, and without the participation of leading politicians from either side.

It will be "a simple working environment," a press official for EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle told DW.

"There are no declarations or press conferences planned. Everything will be focused on the technical procedures of initializing the agreement," according to the EU Commission.

Signature pending

A date for the actual signing of the agreement remains uncertain.

Germany's government says it expects the Ukrainian government to first "make more progress towards democracy and the rule of law - without this the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement will be hard to imagine."

It says that recent legal verdicts against Ukraine’s former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, and other members of her former government, have left an "impression of selective and politically motivated justice in Ukraine."

German opposition politicians have meanwhile called on the government to make sure it is absolutely clear about its position on Kyiv.

"It would be good if we would communicate how immensely frustrated Germany is with the political situation in the Ukraine," Viola von Cramon of Germany's Green Party says.

Von Cramon says the release of political prisoners in Ukraine should be a condition before the signing can go ahead.

"Not only the release of Tymoshenko, but of all former members of government," says von Cramon, who believes Ukraine should allow the opposition the same access to the media as ruling politicians enjoy. "It's got to be possible to hold demonstrations, free and open demonstrations."

Test of democracy

Parliamentary elections in October will be crucial for the future of the agreement, says Elmar Brok of the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs.

"It's crucial that the vote is free and fair. A condition for this is that the opposition can contest the poll without fear of imprisonment," Brok says.

He says the EU parliament will sign the deal once it feels Ukraine has fulfilled its obligations.

But Brok says Ukraine's leaders seem unwilling to meet Brussels' demands.

He is calling on the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, to stop "inventing new legal constructions to put opposition politicians behind bars."

"The law is not a tool for the government to act against the opposition. The law is there to protect the citizens from the state. And it's here that Yanokovych has got things wrong," says Brok.

EU or Russia?

There is still a good chance the deal will be finalized at an EU-Ukraine summit in November. That's according to Michael Emerson of the Brussels Center for European Policy Studies.

But this depends on international observers concluding that the elections - the month before - meet "democratic" standards.

Emerson says a number of EU countries want the deal to be signed quickly because they see it as a means to offering Kyiv an alternative to Russia's plans for a customs union with Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

"[Incoming Russian President] Putin will put pressure on Ukraine over the customs union," Emerson warns, "but if Yanukovych gives in to that pressure, the EU will freeze the Association Agreement."

EU parliamentarian Elmar Brok also believes a customs union with Moscow is not in Ukraine's best interests.

"A close cooperation with Russia is against its political interests - and above all its economic interests," says Brok. "The Russian market has nothing to offer to Ukraine."

Author: Eugen Theise / Markian Ostaptschuk / ai
Editor: Zulfikar Abbany