Doors open for Kiev, EU says

KIEV, Ukraine, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- European Union Neighborhood Policy Commissioner Stefan Fule said Wednesday the door to the EU is open to Ukraine if it chooses to seize the

"The EU's commitment to bring EU-Ukraine relations to a new quality, opening up new opportunities for the Ukrainian people, is firm," he said in a statement. "The door for such a qualitative step forward is open and we look forward to the government's implementation of its decision Sept. 18 to sign the association agreement in [Lithuania] on Nov. 29."

Fule said he met in Kiev with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to discuss Ukraine's efforts to move closer to the EU with an association agreement. The commissioner said he had assurances Ukrainian lawmakers would vote on new laws on elections, judicial reform and the medical treatment of prisoner's abroad during the Thursday session.

Lawmakers are mulling a bill that would release jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to Germany for health treatment. She was jailed in 2011 for helping securing a gas deal with Russia that's seen as unfavorable to Ukraine. The EU says her imprisonment is a case of selective justice. Tymoshenko lost to Yanukovych in 2010 elections.

Ukraine has passed more than a dozen measures aimed at meeting EU standards.