Ukraine has never been so close to European integration, but a referendum to be held by the Netherlands in April 2016 could be putting that under threat. All EU member states have ratified the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. However, an advisory referendum to take place on 6 April 2016 in the Netherlands has suspended the final approval until a second vote takes place in the Dutch Parliament. We made an interactive map showing how the parliaments of the signatory states voted for the Association Agreement with Ukraine.
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Over 87% of parliamentarians of EU member states, the EU parliament, and the parliament of Ukraine voted in favor of ratifying the EU-Ukraine association agreement, according to publicly available data gathered on Wikipedia (5311 out of 6081 votes). Romania’s parliament was the fastest to ratify the treaty on 9 July 2014, followed by Lithuania, Latvia, and Bulgaria. The last countries to ratify the agreement were Belgium on 20 November 2015, Greece, and Cyprus.
From publicly available data, three states approved the treaty by a 100% vote – Ukraine, Croatia, and Latvia. Overall, Ukraine’s largest supporters (over 95% of support) were the former Eastern Bloc countries, with the exception of the Czech Republic, and Spain. Italy was the least enthusiastic about closer ties with Ukraine, with roughly 67% votes in favor, followed by Austria and Ireland. The EU Parliament had a 77% approval rate. The Netherlands, who have stalled the adoption of the referendum, had the same rate of approval – 77%. The voting breakdown for some countries was unavailable in the public domain.
The treaty which commits Ukraine to economic, judicial, and financial reforms to converge its policies and legislation to those of the European Union was initialed on 30 March 2012 in Brussels. This comes after more than two decades in which both parties sought to establish closer ties with each other. The stalling of the signing of the Association Agreement by then-President Yanukovych under Russian pressure on 26 November 2013 sparked the Euromaidan Revolution, leading to his ouster and replacement by an interim government in February 2014.