Strasbourg -
The parliaments of Ukraine and the European Union ratified a landmark political and free trade deal on Tuesday.
“(Ukrainians) died for a place for Ukraine in Europe. Starting from World War II, no other nation has ever paid as high a price for the right to be European,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said as the European Parliament and Verkhovna Rada voted simultaneously.
The deal paves the way for deeper political relations between the EU and Ukraine and grants the country tariff-free access to the bloc's giant market.
Moscow has long been critical of the agreement, amid concerns that the trade pact could hurt the Russian economy.
The United States congratulated Ukraine for “making history” with the ratification of the free-trade deal.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, citing months of conflict in eastern Ukraine, said: “This is the association agreement that caused Russia to start all of this.”
Pressure from Moscow was widely blamed for the refusal by Ukrainian ex-president Viktor Yanukovych, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to sign the agreement in November 2013. The attempt to scuttle the EU agreement triggered anti-government protests that eventually toppled Yanukovych, followed by a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
In a bid to further peace in the region, the Ukrainian Parliament approved legislation granting greater autonomy to the separatist-held eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which is a key part of the Kiev government's ceasefire deal with rebels.
Both parties in the conflict will be granted amnesty, except for those who have committed “serious crimes,” according to the law.
The legislation outlining temporary self-rule for three years allows for elections but stipulates that the separatists must renounce their bid for independence.
Former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said the law would not bring peace, while Donetsk separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko said the measure would be studied and welcomed only if it brought independence to the region.
Poroshenko said the political and economic agreement with the EU showed that “any inner or outer force that tried to stop our progress has already known defeat.”
The pact is a “first but most decisive step” toward membership in the 28-country EU, he said.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz called the vote a “moment of glory” for democracy.
The entire agreement will not enter into force swiftly, however, in a move that some EU parliamentarians decried as an inappropriate concession to Russia.
The EU, Ukraine and Russia agreed Friday to postpone the deal's trade component until the end of 2015, which EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht called “part and parcel of the comprehensive peace process in Ukraine.”
He told EU lawmakers Tuesday that the ratification could not have proceeded without the agreement on the delay, as Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner Stefan Fule pointed to the fact that Russia had threatened cash-strapped Ukraine with swift economic retaliation.
Moscow has asked that about one-fourth of the text be cut from the deal's trade component, De Gucht said. The amendments are purportedly meant to protect Russia - which has its own free-trade agreement with Ukraine -from being flooded with EU goods.
Poroshenko assured his parliamentarians that “no paragraph, no comma, no word” in the agreement with the EU would change.
De Gucht said the agreement “establishes a bond between Ukraine and the EU that will be very difficult, if not completely impossible, to undo.”
The deal has to be ratified by all 28 EU member states to enter into force. Six countries have already done so, De Gucht said.
Some EU lawmakers were unhappy with the agreement.
“What's happening is that Mr Putin is putting his foot in the door,” Green parliamentarian Rebecca Harms said. “I don't know whether I should be glad, whether I should laugh, whether I should cry.”
Conservative lawmaker Jacek Saryusz-Wolski called the postponement “regrettable.”
“This delay may be seen as a Russian victory in a Cold War climate,” Socialist leader Gianni Pittella said.
Ukraine is expected to still benefit from provisional trade concessions that the EU has granted Kiev in a bid to bolster its battered economy.
The measures mirror the benefits Kiev will get from the trade agreement. - Sapa-dpa