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- The Paris summit of September 2008 was a major event in the EU-Ukraine bilateral relations. It was hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France and president-in-office of the European Council. Also, Javier Solana, the High Representative of the EU for common foreign and security policy and some other high-ranking officials from Brussels attended the event. According to Ukraine's president, Viktor Yuschenko, "the message he received from the EU was full of hope and promise". However, most observers noticed the lack of unity among Member States as far as Ukraine's future is concerned. In fact, the EU has pledged to tighten economic and political ties with Ukraine, while refusing to put the country on a path to join the bloc The only thing which was viewed as a substantial progress was the name of the new enhanced agreement replacing the PCA: an Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine. However, the presidency-in-office emphasized that the issue of recognizing European aspiration of Ukraine was not on the agenda. Also, Ukraine and the EU agreed on starting talks leading to complete lifting of visa requirements for Ukrainians. As far as economic and trade cooperation is concerned, leaders only expressed hope that the ongoing negotiation process on establishing a free-trade area between the EU and Ukraine could be finalised by the end of 2009. However, the biggest disappointment for Ukraine was that Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg opposed any explicit wording of a European perspective of Ukraine. Once again, the European Commission formula for Ukraine - "the future cannot be prejudged" - was used to resist pro-European demands of the Ukrainian leadership to recognize the country's right to join the bloc in the future. As a result, the EU official position dating back to 2004 did not change, despite numerous arguments in favor of supporting Ukraine from Poland, the Baltic States, the UK, the Czech Republic and other Member States. Some observers underline that the so-called "Old Europe" club insisted that it was not the right time to offer such a gift to Ukraine. They were chiefly Germany and Italy where respectively and Silvio Berlusconi are viewed as strong lobbyists of Russian interests in the shared neighbourhood. The official communiqué of the summit does however state that "Ukraine's future is in Europe". The new "Association agreement" would be composed of four parts, each covering a different area. These are and foreign and ; justice and internal security issues; and social cooperation; and the establishment of a comprehensive free-trade area. The diplomatic efforts of the EU aiming to pacify victorious Russia had a direct impact on the EU-Ukraine summit, prompting a last-minute change in the location of the meeting from Evian to Paris to allow to the EU leaders more time to rest after their return from Moscow and Tbilisi. (en)
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