PM says neither Russia nor anyone else to stop the implementation of FTA with the EU

The free trade agreement with the European Union will come into force from January 1, 2016: "Neither Russia nor anyone else will stop this process. This is our bilateral agreement with the European Union, and we decide as to the content and form of this agreement," Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk underlined at a meeting of the collegium of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine on Tuesday, June 23.

"It’s our right to decide that this agreement will enter into force and be realized in our bilateral relations on January 1, 2016", he stressed.

According to him, in the framework of the FTA all the Ministries have been ordered to implement the basic provisions of the agreement. Arseniy Yatsenyuk has noted that some Ministries "are not in a hurry to execute the Government’s orders on the implementation of the agreement": "Most of all I am concerned about technical regulations, which are within the competence of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine."

"We have finally given up the use of "USSR State standard specifications" and gone to the technical regulations, standards and quality of products, which are in the European Union. This is the only way in order to conquer new markets," Arseniy Yatsenyuk pointed out.

"European technical regulations mean the competitiveness of Ukrainian goods", he added.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk has asked the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine to speed up work on the introduction of technical regulations of the European standard.

The Prime Minister has emphasized the need to "clearly define the strategy of the state’s new economic policy": "We have moved from the post-Soviet, but we haven’t reached the new market-oriented, liberal and efficient one."

The activities of the Ministry of Economy, he underlined, should be "a guide as a whole for several decades ahead of which economy we are building in our country ": "Will it be a raw material and backward economy like Russia's one, or will it be a qualitatively new economy, which is based on the knowledge and fighting for new markets, struggling in a very competitive global environment and and captures it. I know that you and I personally advocate for the second option- the efficient, fast, powerful, competitive model of Ukrainian economy," the Prime Minister appealed to the representatives of the Ministry of Economic Development.