Ukraine-EU summit to miss association deal: envoy

(KIEV) - Ukraine and the European Union are unlikely to seal an association agreement at a summit next month with them still at odds over the jailing of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the EU envoy said.

It was expected that the summit would mark the conclusion of the EU-Ukraine negotiations for a free trade area and an association agreement, a key first step towards Ukraine one day joining the bloc.

The row over Tymoshenko's jailing, which has outraged the EU, has also raised questions about whether the December 19 summit in Kiev will take place at all.

"For the moment the entire text is still not ready and it looks like it's impossible to have the initialling of the agreement coincide with the summit," EU ambassador Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira said in comments late Thursday, confirmed by his press service to AFP on Friday.

The initialling of the text would be a final step towards the formal signature of the agreement.

President Viktor Yanukovych appeared unsure Thursday of whether he would host the key meeting at all, amid reports that he will go to Moscow instead.

"I didn't give anyone information as to where I will be on the 19th," he told journalists. "I will be where I am needed."

Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in jail on October 11 for abuse of authority for agreeing gas contracts with Russia in 2009, a verdict the EU said was politically motivated and dented Kiev's chances of joining the bloc.

She has insisted that her prosecution was ordered by her arch-foe Yanukovych, who defeated her and other leaders of the 2004 Orange Revolution in the 2010 presidential election.

Earlier this month the Ukrainian tax office said she had been charged with financial crimes, including organising the concealment of hard currency earnings of more than $165 million, embezzling budget funds, and tax evasion totalling around $5.86 million.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite on Tuesday went as far as to say that a "fair" re-examination of the Tymoshenko verdict should be a condition for holding the summit.