Verkhovna Rada to set up office to adapt Ukrainian legislation to EU laws - Rada speaker

MOSCOW. Feb 10 (Interfax) - The Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada plans to establish a special office for the adaptation of Ukrainian laws to the legislation of the European Union, Rada Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said.

"The implementation of the European Commission's recommendations [to enable Ukraine to retain its EU candidate status] is only the first stage on our path to the European Union, to full-fledged membership in the EU. After that, we expect full-fledged negotiations on our membership in the European Union to start. As a result of these negotiations, Ukraine will receive a number of areas in which we will have to improve our legislation. But even without waiting for this decision on negotiations on full-fledged membership, the parliament is already starting to work: we are creating a parliamentary office that will deal with issues of approximation of Ukraine's laws to the [legislation] of the European Union," Ukrainian media quoted Stefanchuk as saying during the national telethon on Thursday.

Furthermore, the Verkhovna Rada has signed memoranda "with a large number of European Union parliaments, which will help bring the legislation of Ukraine closer to the legislation of the European Union," he said.