News date: 16 May 2019
On 15 May 2019 Olena Omelchenko, Partner, Attorney at Law and Head of International Trade Practice, delivered a speech at the conference “EU: Future Simple or Future Indefinite” organized by the European Business Association. The discussion was attended by the Head of the European Union Delegation to Ukraine Hugues Mingarelli, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom and Nothern Ireland to Ukraine Judith Gough, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Austria to Ukraine Hermine Poppeller, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Lithuania to Ukraine Marius Janukonis, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Sweden to Ukraine Martin Hagström, the Head of the Economic Section of the French Embassy Vincent Pringault, and the Board Chairman of Grawe Ukraine Natalia Bazilevska.
The conference was devoted to the issues of trade relations between Ukraine and the EU, the forecast of the European business climate development in the next few years and Ukraine’s progress in implementing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
“Against the background of existing trade restrictions and sanctions with the Russian Federation, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement is the most important trade agreement allowing the Ukrainian businesses to diversify their export of goods to the EU. Moreover, statistics and practice demonstrate that within a framework of bilateral EU-Ukraine trade relations the number of trade measures in the form of anti-dumping and safeguard duties has reduced, despite the fact that the agreement allows for their use. This testifies to the fair competition and the lack of need for the business to protect domestic market from imports,” – said Olena Omelchenko.
The participants discussed the key problems of the EU, in particular, Brexit, migration, terrorism, aging of the nation and the consequences of the 2008 crisis. The EU member states will hold together, since it will be much easier for them to overcome the arising difficulties.