Signing agreements under ‘industrial visa-free travel’ may not be in 2021 – Dpty PM Stefanyshyna

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanyshyna has said there may be no signing of agreements under the Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (ASAA) in 2021.

"I think that the most important thing is that we started these negotiations and such a mission will come to Ukraine [the assessment mission on 'industrial visa-free travel']. After that, it has to evaluate all the legislation in the field of technical regulation of standards for industry, which we have transformed over the past ten years. Then, we will evaluate all market surveillance authorities, how they work, how they are in operation, as well as certification and accreditation authorities. However, this is a rather lengthy process," Stefanyshyna said in an exclusive interview with Interfax-Ukraine.

The deputy prime minister also said that the mission's work will be held in four stages and only then Ukraine will receive recommendations that it will have to implement.

"In fact, we are on a victorious path, because now we are entering into technical procedures, with the end of which we will be ready to talk about signing the agreement. This is not a quick process, but I will try to hasten it," she said.

Stefanyshyna also said that she would ask the European party, despite the restrictions due to coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, to hasten the start of the assessment mission, at least in a remote format at the stage of work with the legal environment.

Answering the clarifying question whether should we expect the signing of agreements under the "industrial visa-free travel" in 2021, the deputy prime minister said that this may not be.

"However, we have already reached the greatest agreement. I would like to remind that there was no talk of the intention to sign this agreement in any official document of Ukraine-EU, except for the expert working group, three years ago. Extraordinary efforts managed to consolidate this issue in the declaration of the last summit," Stefanyshyna said.

Source: www.en.interfax.com.ua