Post date: Dec 17, 2013 10:14:9 PM
EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele welcomes Russia's $15-billion bailout of Ukraine, if it does not run counter to initial commitments made by Kiev toward a trade and political pact with Europe.
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (DECEMBER 17, 2013) (REUTERS) - EU enlargement chief Stefan Fuele, the bloc's pointman on Ukraine, on Tuesday (December 17) said he would welcome Russia's bailout of Ukraine if it did not run counter to initial commitments made by Kiev toward a trade and political pact with Europe.
Russia agreed a $15-billion bailout for Ukraine and slashed the price of gas exports on Tuesday under a deal that keeps the cash-strapped country in Moscow's orbit but fuelled street protests inKiev.Vladimir Putin's lifeline to Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was a triumph for the Russian leader in a geopolitical battle with Europe. But the deal is a heavy financial burden for Russia and he failed to lure Ukraine into a customs union with other ex-Soviet republics.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Kiev within hours of the agreement and accused Yanukovich of selling his country to the highest bidder after walking away from a trade deal withEurope.
The deal appears to preclude Ukraine looking West in the near future, though its leaders say they still see building ties with the European Union as a possible long-term goal.
"If the discussions in Moscow have brought normalcy to the trade relationship between Ukraine andRussia on the mutually beneficial basis, and if those agreements are in line with the commitments undertaken by the Ukrainians by initialling and actually adopting the text of the association agreement in the government on 18th of September, then I think one could only welcome that development," Fuele told a news conference in Brussels.
Ukraine had been seeking help to cover an external funding gap of $17 billion next year - almost the level of the central bank's depleted currency reserves.
Investors said the deal would stave off the immediate threat of default or a currency crisis but said there were also risks for Russia, whose own economy is stuttering.
Fuele also announced that the European Union set a date of Jan. 21 for the start of accession talks with Serbia, rewarding Belgrade for democratic reforms and its efforts to normalise relations with its former province, Kosovo.
To win the green light, Serbia has gone through a remarkable transformation from being a pariah among ex-Yugoslav states, punished for its role in the wars of the 1990s. It will still take years before Belgrade is ready to join the bloc.
"The adoption of the Negotiating Framework is an important step forward for Serbia. We will now rapidly prepare the first Inter-Governmental Conference which is planned for 21st January," Fuele said.
Serbia and Kosovo have been at odds since Kosovo seceded in 2008 with Western backing. After months of EU-brokered talks, the two sides reached an agreement in April aimed at ending the virtual ethnic partition of Kosovo between its ethnic Albanian majority and a pocket of some 50,000 Serbs in the north.
Out of Serbia's former Yugoslav peers, Croatia and Slovenia are EU members.