The European Union has given Ukraine a list of conditions the country needs to meet if it wants visa requirements lifted. At a summit with Viktor Yanukovich, Ukraine’s president, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, said that progress on the visa issue was now “largely in Ukraine’s hands”.

The action plan is a major diplomatic victory for Ukraine as several EU member states, including France and Germany, fear an influx of job-seekers from Ukraine (which has a population of 47 million) if visa requirements are eased.

Yanukovich said that his government understood what needed to be done and vowed that the main conditions would be met in the next year.

“Ukraine is a partner of strategic importance for the European Union,” said Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council. He said that Ukraine had found “political stability” since Yanukovich’s election earlier this year and now needed to push political and economic reforms.

Van Rompuy said that talks on an association agreement, which includes a comprehensive free-trade pact, should be completed next year and called on the authorities to reform the constitution.

“We acknowledge Ukraine’s European aspiration and we welcome its European choice,” Van Rompuy said.

Barroso said that negotiations on the association agreement should be completed in the first half of next year. But he also warned: “We want to see progress on Ukraine’s democratic reform agenda.” Yanukovich’s administration has been accused by activists and observers of curtailing political freedoms in Ukraine.

Yanukovich assured his EU partners that there would “never” be a repeat of last year’s gas crisis, when Russia stopped deliveries to the EU via Ukraine. Günther Oettinger, the European commissioner for energy, met the energy ministers of Ukraine and Russia today to discuss energy co-operation.