Translated material
Election gift
The United States spared Ukraine from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment
Ukraine has overtaken Russia in the negotiation process for accession to the WTO. On March 8, the US House of Representatives repealed the Jackson-Vanik amendment regarding Ukraine. In November 2005, the US Senate took a similar step. Delighted President Viktor Yushchenko thanked George Bush in writing “for consistent support of reform steps” and Kyiv’s course towards Euro-Atlantic integration.The US passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1974 to punish the USSR for restricting Jewish emigration. The amendment established discriminatory terms of trade and also prohibited the export of high technology and the provision of US government loans. This relic of the Cold War era is still preserved by the Americans in relation to Russia and some other countries of the former USSR.
According to the Minister of Economy of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk, trade turnover with the United States will now double from 1.5 to 3 billion dollars. The main jackpot from this will be won by Ukrainian metallurgical enterprises concentrated in the east of the country. And this will increase the popularity of the party in power in traditionally pro-Russian regions.
The head of the election campaign of the opposition Party of Regions, Evgeny Kushnarev, called the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment a planned action by the Americans. According to him, “The United States is a shadow player in the Ukrainian elections, whose goal is to keep the bankrupt “Maidan team” in power at any cost.” Let us remind you that parliamentary elections will be held in Ukraine on March 26.
The repeal of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment will facilitate Ukraine's accession to the WTO, and WTO membership is the main condition for creating a free trade area between Ukraine and the EU. “Although Ukraine is slightly ahead of Russia in the WTO negotiation process, economically powerful Russia has much more arguments,” one of the leaders of the Party of Regions, Taras Chornovil, said in a commentary to Vremya Novostei. According to his forecasts, Ukraine and Russia will simultaneously join the WTO in 2006. “The intentions of the party in power to overtake the Russians are wrong,” says Mr. Chornovil. “With a policy of synchronous accession with Russia, Ukraine could negotiate for itself much better terms of membership than the current half-capitulative ones.”
Pro-presidential forces have no doubt that Ukraine will join the WTO before Russia. And in this case, Kyiv will be able to dictate to the Russians its terms of membership in this organization. “When agreeing on the appropriate protocol, certain disagreements are inevitable, but they are unlikely to be significant,” Viktor Lisitsky, Secretary of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine during Yushchenko’s premiership in 1999-2001, told VN. According to Mr. Lisitsky, “it is not in Yushchenko’s rules to put a spoke in Russia’s wheels,” since “this does not correspond to the president’s mentality.” In addition, our interlocutor noted, Ukraine itself is interested in Russia’s membership in the WTO, since “in this case it will receive an arbiter” in trade disputes with the Russians in the person of influential international organizations.