Yahoo - AFP, December 15, 2016
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said EU leaders agreed to give the Netherlands guarantees that will enable it to ratify the group's pact with Ukraine (AFP Photo/ JERRY LAMPEN) |
Brussels
(AFP) - The EU struck a compromise with the Netherlands on Thursday to save the
bloc's historic association pact with Ukraine that was sealed over bitter
Russian opposition but then rejected by Dutch voters.
European
Union leaders gave Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte special pledges limiting
defence commitments to Ukraine, and saying that the accord does not entail
future membership for Kiev.
"It
wasn't easy, it wasn't pleasant, but it is necessary, because it ensures that
the EU can continue to form a united front against destabilising Russian
foreign policy," Rutte said.
"This
decision is important because it sets out once and for all what the Association
Agreement means and -- above all -- what it does not mean. After today there
can be no misunderstanding on that score."
Officials
had warned that failure to reach a deal, which should allow the Netherlands to
become the final EU nation to ratify it, would have been a victory for Russia
and its involvement in the Ukraine conflict.
The 28 EU
leaders agreed a special statement saying that the accord "does not confer
on Ukraine the status of a candidate country for accession to the Union, nor
does it constitute a commitment to confer such status to Ukraine in the
future".
It also
says the pact "does not contain an obligation for the Union or its member
states to provide collective security guarantees or other military aid or
assistance to Ukraine".
Rutte had
warned earlier that it would be the "biggest ever present" for
Russian President Vladimir Putin if the EU-Ukraine cooperation deal was
torpedoed by growing eurosceptic opposition in the Netherlands.
EU leaders
separately agreed at the summit to extend economic sanctions against Russia
over the conflict in Ukraine for another six months until mid-2017, officials
said.
Dutch Prime
Minister Mark Rutte arrives on the second day of the EU Summit
in Brussels,
Belgium June 29, 2016. REUTERS/Phil Noble
|
'Not good
but necessary'
The EU
agreed the cooperation pact and an associated free trade agreement with Ukraine
in 2014 after pro-EU protestors ousted Russia-leaning president Viktor
Yanukovych who fled to Moscow.
But Dutch
voters rejected the deal in April on the grounds it opened the door to
Ukraine's membership of the bloc and amounted to a defence guarantee for a
country already embroiled in bloody conflict with Russia.
Ratified by
the other 27 EU member states, the agreement needs Dutch endorsement to come
into full effect or it will have to be withdrawn.
President
Petro Poroshenko has committed Ukraine, long-ruled from Moscow as a Soviet-era
satellite, to a future with the EU and the accord was widely seen as paving the
way to future membership.
He also
wants the country to join NATO, a move Putin has made clear would be completely
unacceptable and force Russia to take retaliatory measures.
The
possible failure of the accord has stoked growing fears and anger in Ukraine,
with many complaining that the EU is breaking its promises of closer ties.
Rutte, who
faces elections early next year with populist and anti-EU sentiment on the
rise, previously warned he would have no option but to drop the Ukraine pact if
he could not get satisfaction in Brussels.
Officials
had said EU leaders would do their best to help him but there had been concerns
the pledges could amount to changing some of the bloc's treaty obligations, a
no-go area.
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