Barroso Won’t Rule Out Changes to EU-Ukraine Pact

A top European Union official backed away from a pledge not to allow changes to the bloc’s newly ratified trade pact
with Ukraine, a move likely to intensify Russian pressure on the country even as its president insisted Thursday that
the doors to Europe remained open.

“I think it’s in the interests of everybody now to work constructively on these matters,” European Commission
President José Manuel Barroso told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. “We are open and we are constructive
and are pragmatic.”

The comments mark a change in tone from Brussels, which had previously ruled out any reworking of the accord. The EU
and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko already agreed Sept. 12 to delay implementing key sections on trade until 2016.
Russia, in turn, agreed to back off a threat to impose sweeping trade restrictions on Ukraine.

But last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his economy minister, Alexei Ulyukayev, both sent letters to EU
officials warning that Russia could still retaliate against Ukraine for ratifying the deal.

Mr. Barroso, whose term expires this fall, said Thursday that if Kyiv requested it, the EU would be willing to discuss
both the implementation of the agreement and its impact on Russia.

“If the Ukrainians, listening to Russian concerns, want to discuss some matters with us, of course we are ready to
listen,” he said.

The trade and political association pact has been at the heart of EU policy toward Kyiv for years, with European
officials saying it represents the most ambitious such agreement ever signed, offering Kyiv a clear European path.

Any further concessions could be another blow domestically to Mr. Poroshenko; political rivals have accused him of
giving too much to Russia already. Moscow has stridently opposed the idea of Kyiv leaving its orbit–a prospect that
sparked the current conflict in eastern Ukraine.

In Kyiv on Thursday, Mr. Poroshenko put a positive spin on Ukraine’s difficult situation, saying that a fragile cease-
fire signed this month with Russia-backed rebels was taking hold and that “the main, most dangerous part of the war is
already past.”

“Today is the first day in many weeks and months that there was not a single Ukrainian killed or wounded, when the
cease-fire has finally started to work,” he said. City officials in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk reported
explosions and shelling could be heard throughout the day, however.

Mr. Poroshenko also said his reform program would put Ukraine in a position to apply for EU membership in 2020. “The
doors of the EU are open to us; I’m absolutely convinced of that,” he said.

Many European officials concede, however, that such a prospect appears remote.

But Mr. Poroshenko also said he would push ahead with plans for next month to repeal a 2010 law banning membership in
any political or military bloc, a move that officials in Kyiv have said could be a step toward joining the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization as well.

On Thursday, a Russian Foreign Ministry official told the official TASS news agency that Kyiv needs to “solve its
problems with Russia” before considering EU membership.

Mr. Poroshenko said he hopes to meet Mr. Putin in Europe within the next three weeks, but he didn’t provide details.

Kyiv agreed Sept. 5 to a Russia-brokered peace deal after the alleged intervention of the Russian military on behalf
of pro-Russia separatists.

Mr. Poroshenko reiterated that Kyiv is offering limited, local autonomy to the separatists. They have rejected his
offer of local elections in December and said they would go ahead with their own on Nov. 2.

“No one can ever put the questions of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence up for negotiation,” Mr.
Poroshenko said. “We have only a process of decentralization that is beginning throughout the country.”

The war has knocked Ukraine’s economy into a tailspin, with a contraction of at least 7% expected this year. Mr.
Poroshenko vowed to do everything possible to stop the slide of the hryvnia, which has lost about 40% of its value this
year.

He said Ukraine would need more assistance from Western donors and that he hoped he would be able to raise at least $1
billion to rebuild the battered eastern region.

Russia has fiercely opposed the EU-Ukraine pact, arguing it will flood its domestic markets with EU products and
undercut its own exports to Ukraine. It has submitted a shopping list of proposed changes to the accord that would
significantly reduce its scope.

Mr. Barroso said that during his periodic discussions with Mr. Putin, there was an “understanding” that the Sept. 12
compromise “was opening the space and the time for discussions about the way to implement” the trade pact, “considering
also some Russian concerns.”

Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven developed nations, meeting in New York on Thursday, welcomed the cease-fire
deal, but said sanctions imposed on Russia “can only be rolled back when Russia meets its commitments…and respects
Ukraine’s sovereignty.”

The EU has pledged to review its most recent sanctions by the end of September.

Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Gregory L. White at greg.white@wsj.com

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