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BRUSSELS: The European Union, Russia and Ukraine agreed on Friday to delay the implementation of an EU-Ukraine free trade pact until the end of next year, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said.

Ukraine will continue to enjoy privileged access to the EU market until that date, he said, but it will not have to cut duties on imports from the EU in return.

The move appears to be at least partly a concession to Russia, which fears the EU-Ukraine agreement will harm its industry.

It has been urging the EU to refrain from implementing the free-trade pact with Ukraine until its concerns over the agreement are addressed.

The EU-Ukraine free trade pact is the centrepiece of a wide-ranging political and trade agreement which has been at the heart of Ukraine's political crisis over the last year.

Moscow had threatened to introduce import tariffs on Ukrainian goods if Kiev went ahead with the planned trade agreement from Nov. 1.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had also asked the EU to consider allowing Kiev to delay reducing customs duty on EU exports coming into the Ukraine under the new pact, Interfax Ukraine news agency reported.

Allowing EU products more cheaply into the Ukraine market could initially create problems for the weak economy there.

"We will delay the provisional application of the (free trade agreement) until Dec. 31 of next year," De Gucht told a news conference after talks with Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin.

The EU will extend temporary tariff cuts it granted to Ukrainian products earlier this year until the end of next year, De Gucht said.

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European Union delays Ukraine free trade deal implementation to end-2015

The European Union must take on its biggest banks so they wont spark another crisis, said Michel Barnier, the blocs outgoing financial services chief.

The largest banks will remain too big to fail, too complex to resolve and too costly to save if the European Union doesnt go beyond current financial laws, Barnier said in an interview yesterday in Milan. He called on the next European Commission, which starts its term on Nov. 1, to press ahead with new rules on bank structure to rein in these risks.

Priorities also include better oversight of shadow banking, central counterparties and benchmark interest rates, Barnier said. He urged the 28-nation bloc not to be complacent with the changes it has put in place over the past two years.

It is necessary to make Europe better, Barnier said.

Barnier weathered Europes biggest post-war financial crisis during his term as commissioner and has sought to reshape the blocks markets as his legacy. In January, he proposed a wide-ranging plan to break up the biggest banks in a bid to prevent trading activities from interfering with lending to the broader economy.

The plan would ban proprietary trading and set out EU-wide standards for splitting up the most systemically important banks, pushing certain kinds of derivatives and other trading activities into separately capitalized units.

Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and Denmark are among at least 10 countries that have challenged Barniers approach to separation of trading activities, with some warning that the plans dont leave supervisors enough flexibility to decide whether to go ahead with separation, and that the range of activities to be split off is too wide.

The separation plan has also hit a legal snag, after in-house lawyers for the EU said that some exemptions built into the proposals needed to be scaled back or the legislation as a whole made more flexible.

A number of nations want the proprietary-trading ban to be scrapped in favor of an alternative approach, on concerns that a ban could simply push the trading outside of the regulated banking industry, according to a document prepared by Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU.

Barniers proposal is the point of departure, said Swedens Gunnar Hoekmark, appointed to take the lead for the parliament on the file. Lawmakers have said that they expect the discussions on the final form of the measures to last at least a year.

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Barnier Says Next Commission Must Tackle Too-Big-to-Fail Banks

Swedish law requiring network operators to retain communications metadata continues to breach European Union rules, according to Swedish ISP Bahnhof, which has asked the European Commission to intervene.

Together with the 5th of July Foundation, a Swedish organization that aims to protect online rights, Bahnhof sent an official complaint to the Commission. They want the Commission to initiate proceedings against the Swedish government for blatantly ignoring a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), they said in a news release.

The EUs Data Retention Directive had previously required telecommunications and Internet service providers to retain their customers location and traffic metadata for investigatory purposes, but in May the CJEU invalidated the directive because it seriously interferes with fundamental privacy rights.

Bahnhof stopped retaining customer data and deleted all its records a few days after the ruling. It did so with the permission of the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), which said at the time that ISPs could stop collecting data and delete records without consequence. After analyzing the verdict, the authority concluded that there would probably be big problems if it tried to enforce the Swedish data retention law that is still in place.

However, in mid-August the PTS ordered Bahnhof to start retaining data again, Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung said. The PTS has made a 180-degree turn in policy by ordering Bahnhofand Tele2, which also stopped retaining data for a whileto resume doing so.

According to a PTS spokesman, it was the government that ordered the PTS to start enforcing the Swedish data retention law again. They appointed a commissioner to investigate if the Swedish national legislation could still be applied despite the CJEUs ruling, he said. The commissioner came to the conclusion that the national legislation stands, and from that point on, the PTS has been enforcing the law again, he said.

It is a crazy situation, said Karlung, who added that Sweden clearly violates European rights if it keeps ignoring the verdict. Since we are a member state we have to comply with the European justice system. We cannot have laws that contradict what happens in the European Union, he said, adding that the Swedish government should be fined by the EU if it keeps enforcing the data retention law.

Bahnhof said it would also fight the retention law in Swedish courts, but urged the Commission to swiftly investigate the matter to speed things along. In the meantime, Bahnhof refuses to start retaining data again because it follows EU law, Karlung said.

By doing this, Bahnhof chose a different option to Tele2. The latter started retaining data again in response to an order from the PTS pending the outcome of a legal challenge of the order, the PTS spokesman said. So far, the authority has not threatened to fine Bahnhof for ignoring the order. We will have to see what the next step against Bahnhof is, he said.

The Commission takes whatever action it deems appropriate in response to either a complaint or indications of infringements which it detects itself, according to a Commission website. Non-compliance means failure by a Member State to fulfil its obligations under EU law. It may consist either of action or omission, it said.

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Swedish ISP urges European Commission to end 'illegal data retention'

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