| Ukraine is looking for a workaround to the European Union The failure of referendums on the European constitution in France and the Netherlands has confronted Ukraine with the need to reconsider its tactical foreign policy priorities. It is obvious that the prospects for rapid integration into the European community have been lost. But Kyiv will still apply for EU membership, Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk said recently. According to his forecasts, this will most likely happen “in the second half of this year” in the event of “stable success in the economic sector.” The problem is that Europe is immersed in discussions about its own future and no one can now predict the deadline for considering Kyiv’s application.
“A number of documents secure the right of countries that meet the Copenhagen criteria to join the EU. In addition, the EU leadership has repeatedly stated that whatever the results of the referendum on the constitution, expansion will continue,” Igor Ostash, vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and a member of the Rada, commented to Vremya Novostei. Kyiv is pinning its hopes both on the formal procedures existing in the European Union and on the help of its Eastern European neighbors. “Our interests in the EU will be actively lobbied by the Baltic countries, Poland and Germany. In particular, the Bundestag is now considering a document on the European prospects for Ukraine, proposed by the CDU/CSU,” Mr. Ostash believes.
At the same time, hope arose that the protest of the inhabitants of “old” Europe against the further unbridled expansion of the union was addressed to anyone, but not Ukraine. “Neither France nor the Netherlands are hostile towards Ukraine,” Igor Yukhnovsky, an academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and a member of the Rada, told VN. — The failure of the EU constitution has an indirect relation to Ukraine. Europeans, adherents of Christian traditions, were against the entry into the EU of Muslim Turkey, and not Christian Ukraine.”
It is noteworthy that the Ukrainian opposition also does not reject the prospects for the country’s integration into the EU. “Civilized relations consist in the fact that the government and the opposition are moving in the direction of protecting state interests,” Igor Shurma, deputy chairman of the SDPU (o) party and the representative of its faction in the Rada, told VN. Our Social Democratic interlocutor believes that “there is no opposition to the authorities in Ukraine on the issue of EU membership.”
At the same time, Kyiv does not abandon the Common Economic Space - an “eastern” integration project in which its partners will be Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. American billionaire George Soros, who recently visited Ukraine, disparagingly called the Common Economic Space “an ineffective and unpromising way of cooperation, since the member states of this association have different political regimes.” However, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko recently announced that she is not going to break the agreement on the Common Economic Space. “Destroying cooperation is the last thing; it is better to look for mutually beneficial aspects of cooperation,” the prime minister believes.
“Ukraine still needs the SES,” Igor Yukhnovsky noted to VN. “The EU is afraid of the enormous costs of resuscitating the Ukrainian economy, but subject to stable economic development, which will stimulate cooperation within the SES, European integration will become a formal act.” In addition, Ukraine needs Russian energy resources. “Peak gas use will occur in 2030. This means that we will use Russian energy for a very long period. And we need to maintain absolutely normal, calm relations with the Russians that would not threaten the sovereignty of Ukraine,” says Academician Yukhnovsky.
The opposition insists on closer political and economic cooperation within the framework of the Common Economic Space. “In terms of social standards, economic development, and democratic processes, we have not reached the level of Europe. They don’t expect us there before 2016,” says oppositionist Igor Shurma. “You have to be an enemy of your people not to take advantage of the chance in the East.” But opposition representatives complain that Kyiv's foreign policy remains unpredictable. “It’s difficult for the authorities to prove something,” Vitaliy Khomutynnik from the parliamentary faction “Regions of Ukraine” told VN. “Its representatives have returned to a multi-vector policy—coming to each country, they assure that this is Ukraine’s priority.”
“While Yushchenko and Tymoshenko were coming to power, they insisted that Ukraine already had one foot in the EU. Now they say that our strategic goal is the Common Economic Space, but only at a new stage in history. Foreign policy steps are not taken in accordance with a clear plan, but depend on what comes into someone’s head,” Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of Ukraine, told VN. Svetlana STEPANENKO, Kyiv |
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