Ukraine wants consultations with the EU and the WTO on countermeasures against Russia / Photo from ZN.UA
Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Economic Development and Trade and Ukraine's Trade Representative Nataliya Mykolska says that Ukraine plans to hold consultations with the European Union within the Free Trade Area (FTA) and with the World Trade Organization on trade measures Ukraine may take in response to Russia's restrictions on exports from Ukraine.
According to her, Russia introduced import duties on some Ukrainian commodities and banned food imports. What is more, Russia fully suspended transit shipments of Ukrainian commodities across its territory from January 4, 2016.
"According to the crisis center, about 150 wagons and a large number of trucks have been directed back to Ukraine," the Ukrainian Ministry for Economic Development and Trade quoted Mykolska as saying.
"We consider that every country should guarantee the freedom of transit. Other countries that are trade partners, namely Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, and others depend on transit. We view these limitations [introduced by Russia] as aggression of the Russian Federation in the sphere of trade and consider them to be the violation of the principles of international law and WTO agreements," the ministry said.
Mykolska also noted that the Russian restrictions might affect relations with European partners.
"Therefore we need to conduct a joint assessment of any possible measures and hold consultations with our EU FTA partners. We won't leave Russia's restrictive actions without reaction. We will engage the WTO. We're also working with companies to launch an alternative transit route to third countries bypassing Russia's territory," Mykolska said.
On December 16, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the agreement on the free trade area with Ukraine, and on December 25, 2015, Russia's Federation Council passed a federal law on the suspension of the agreement as of January 1, 2016.
Russia took such tough measures against Ukraine in response to the introduction of the economic provisions of the Association Agreement with the EU from January 1, 2016.
Ukraine said it might introduce such countermeasures as duties on imports from Russia and a ban on the supply of meat, fish, cereals, grain, vodka, beer, cigarettes, confectionery, some chemicals and railway equipment. The full list of the products to be subject to the ban as of January 10, 2016, numbers more than 30 items.