OREANDA-NEWS. February 26, 2013. The Ukrainian government has made three important steps to ensure the signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union. It concerns improving the electoral legislation, the liberalization of the visa regime, improvement of the investment and business climate.

Thus, taking into account the recommendations of the OSCE on the parliamentary elections in 2012, a plan of priority measures to improve the electoral legislation has been developed. Among other things, the plan provides for the preparation of proposals for regulatory security free activity of the media during elections.

The second step is to continue the work on the Action Plan for the liberalization of the EU visa regime for Ukraine. In particular, this week a bill was sent to the Parliament on the prevention of discrimination, and to the President of Ukraine was sent the Strategy of integration of Roma into Ukrainian society.

The President also submitted to the ratification the changes to the Agreement with the EU on visa facilitation, the adoption of which will expand the list of categories of Ukrainian citizens who will get benefit from a simplified procedure for issuing visas to EU countries. Now everything depends on the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, where there are 8 bills that require priority consideration in the framework of the transition to the second (implementation) phase of the Plan.

Systematic work to improve the investment and business climate in Ukraine, reduce administrative and regulatory barriers is the third step on the way to the Association with the European Union.

With the proposals of the European Business Association the Government is implementing the Action Plan to promote the activities of foreign investors, approved by the Government in December last year. These issues will be discussed by the parties in an informal dialogue on the business climate issues. A memorandum may be signed at the summit "Ukraine - EU".

Resumption of stand-by program with the IMF, and the EU's decision on granting Ukraine macro-financial assistance in the amount of € 610 million will also contribute to investor’s confidence the.