OREANDA-NEWS. February 22, 2013. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Leonid Kozhara took part in a brief during a meeting of the Government. In his speech, Leonid Kozhara told reporters about the agenda of relations between Ukraine and the European Union and, in particular, scheduled for February 25, 2013, the EU-Ukraine Summit (Brussels).

Leonid Kozhara noted that Ukraine is successfully implementing its obligation to take some legislative acts on the agenda of the Association, as well as the liberalization of the visa regime. "On February 13, the Government has adopted a plan of priority actions in the field of European integration. Actually, this Action Plan is an agenda of Ukrainian reforms and we need these reforms. But the features of this plan of priority measures is that it is also a reaction to the Ukrainian Government on the conclusions of the Council foreign Ministers of the European Union, which adopted some conclusions concerning the European integration of Ukraine," the Minister said. Leonid Kozhara noted that this plan is a very important element in the context of the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which may be signed at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius at the end of November.

The Minister informed that within the EU-Ukraine Summit will be discuss prospects for the introduction of the EU visa regime for Ukrainian citizens. Ukrainian party intends to present the progress in implementing the Action Plan on visa liberalization and confirm the achievement of most of the criteria under its first "legislative" phase. Leonid Kozhara noted that Ukraine hopes that by the results of this report, the European Commission will decide on the transition of our state to the second (implementation) phase of the Action Plan in 2013 year.

The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry also noted the importance of the signed in July 2012 of the Agreement on Amendments to the Agreement between Ukraine and the EU on visa facilitation and hopes regarding priority ratification of this Agreement by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. "I think that as of today the overwhelming majority of people's deputies are interested that the Agreement will be ratified," said Leonid Kozhara.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, answering to questions of journalists, he also said that the results of the EU-Ukraine Ыummit in Brussels are expected to sign several bilateral documents. In particular, it is a Loan Agreement and the Memorandum of macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, the allocation, the Memorandum of early EU-Ukraine dialogue on the business climate, as well as the seventh report on the progress in the implementation of the Memorandum of Cooperation in the energy sector.