On July 19, 2012 in Brussels the text of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU regarding the establishment of a deep and comprehensive free trade area was initialed. The English version of the text of the agreement was initialed at about 19.00 on Kiev time.
The next step is the implementation of technical works on translation of the agreement to Ukrainian and the languages of the EU countries.
The agreement was initialed earlier than it had been expected. According to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade Petr Poroshenko, originally it was expected that this process would be delayed until the end of the year, but thanks to clear and organized work of the parties it has become possible to speed up the results.
We would like to remind that Ukraine and the EU began negotiations on the Association Agreement in 2007. And since 2008 the parties negotiated about the free trade zone.