Despite the positive conclusion of the Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation and their recommendation to adopt draft law No. 0151 on amendments to the Free Trade Agreement between Ukraine and Moldova (Pan-Euro-Med) as a basis and as a whole, the document has not been introduced for more than a month to the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada session.
People's deputies and other officials have repeatedly spoken about the importance of the adoption of this draft law. The document was under the dome of the Verkhovna Rada for more than six months, underwent a number of revisions and was finally recommended by the main committee.
"Implementation of the Protocol (draft law No. 0151 - ed.) will make it possible in bilateral trade between Ukraine and Moldova to be guided by the provisions of the Regional Convention on Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Preferential Rules of Origin or the Alternative Rules of Origin of the mentioned Regional Convention when determining the origin of goods", Committee on Foreign Affairs of politics and interparliamentary cooperation.
Despite this, the document has not been included in the agenda of the Verkhovna Rada session for more than a month, which may indicate an indirect demarche of the monomajority against the adoption of the draft law.
Currently, within the framework of cooperation with the CIS, Ukraine has the largest number of international documents, although it has never been a member of this organization.
In 2018, Ukraine generally withdrew from all statutory bodies of the CIS. Despite this, 365 documents within the Commonwealth remain valid, and another 71 have lapsed or been denounced. The other 509 documents have not been ratified by Ukraine and relate mainly to organizational issues.
One of the documents that has not yet been denounced is the Free Trade Agreement with the CIS. Last year, Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal and Prime Minister of Moldova Natalia Havrylytsia signed a protocol between the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the government of Moldova on amendments to the document.
According to Denys Shmyhal, changes to the Free Trade Agreement provide that pan-Euro-Mediterranean rules of origin of goods will be applied in trade between Ukraine and Moldova.
At the same time, in order to implement this protocol, Ukraine must adopt draft law 0151 on amendments to the Free Trade Agreement, which is still in the Verkhovna Rada and has not yet been put to a vote.
That is why exporters are forced to use the Agreement on a free trade zone with the CIS, which, among other things, includes Russia when passing through customs.