at the VII YES Summit

On October 1-2, the 7th Yalta European Strategy summit was held at the Livadia Palace. The main political topic of the forum was the European integration of Ukraine. Domestic and European politicians exchanged a series of complaints, after which European Commissioner for EU Enlargement Stefan Fule cautiously acknowledged Ukraine's European perspective. Another key issue at the event was the decision of the Constitutional Court to repeal the political reform.

European vector

The next annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) was held under the motto “Ukraine and the world: rethinking prospects.” To encourage guests to talk about global issues, a large-scale installation was installed near the Livadia Palace - three giant folding chairs around an equally huge table. “I wanted to show that the problems that we will now discuss are even larger than those that were solved here in 1945 (at the Yalta conference with the participation of Joseph Stalin, William Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. — Kommersant),” explained the idea to one of the guests , the leader of the Front of Change party Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the founder of YES, businessman Viktor Pinchuk.

The level of representation at the forum was higher than ever. The current presidents of Ukraine and Poland, Viktor Yanukovych and Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and European Commissioner for EU Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule came to Livadia. By the way, Mr. Fule arrived in Yalta on a three-day visit, which is an unprecedented sign of attention.

All leading forum participants spoke about the prospects for European integration of Ukraine. The tone was set by Mr. Yanukovych, who for the first time during his tenure as head of state harshly criticized the position of the European Union in negotiations on the creation of a free trade area (FTA) with Ukraine. “The EU offers us to immediately remove tariff and non-tariff restrictions. The cost of this step is 20% of budget revenues from imports,” the president was indignant. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Brussels refuses to recognize Ukraine's European perspective. “Since the EU is not ready to discuss Ukraine’s membership, we will choose the pace and forms of rapprochement ourselves,” he warned.

Bronislaw Komorowski supported his Ukrainian colleague, saying that he would lobby for European recognition of Ukraine's membership prospects. “We (the EU—Kommersant) should not argue that Europe has exhausted its strength and will be able to announce expansion only after it has solved its internal problems. We need to talk about parallel processes!” the Polish leader convinced the audience. “Poland will try to influence the European Union so that he finally finds the courage to talk about expansion."

Stefan Fule's speech was no less emotional. “What can we say about Ukraine’s desire to join the EU? That this is just an illusion and rhetoric,” the European Commissioner said rather sharply. “We have already made many concessions where we could. But there are moments where we cannot compromise. In in particular, regarding the state of civil rights and freedoms."

After Stefan Fule's negotiations with Viktor Yanukovych, the tone of the European Commissioner's statements softened significantly. And at a press conference on Friday evening, he unexpectedly made it clear that there was still a prospect of Ukraine’s membership in the EU. The main condition for this, in his opinion, is the continuation of democratic reforms in the country. “If you continue to move along the path of reform, then at some time, I am convinced, a consensus will be reached between the EU member states regarding Article 49 of the Amsterdam Treaty,” said Mr. Fule.

The document mentioned by the European Commissioner states that an application for EU membership can be submitted by any European state that complies with the basic principles of the EU - freedom, democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights.

Constitutional vector

Information that the Constitutional Court (CC) intends to publish a decision on the constitutionality of the political reform on Friday (see pages 1, 2) appeared in the media on the eve of the summit. It did not come as a surprise to Ukrainian forum participants. “To be honest, a few days ago I knew the exact text of this decision, only without the fourth paragraph (that the decision of the Constitutional Court is final and not subject to appeal. - Kommersant),” Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Vladimir Litvin admitted to Kommersant during one of the breaks .

On Friday, almost all of the top-rated Ukrainian politicians gathered at the Livadia Palace, with the exception of the leader of Batkivshchyna, Yulia Tymoshenko. It is noteworthy that at previous YES summits, opposition leaders were traditionally invited to participate in the discussion (see Kommersant on September 28, 2009). Victor Pinchuk told reporters that Ms. Tymoshenko did not respond to YES’ invitation. “This is not true. There was no invitation,” Grigory Nemyrya, Mrs. Tymoshenko’s adviser on foreign policy, commented on his words.

In Yalta, it was Mr. Nemyrya who turned out to be the main speaker on behalf of Batkivshchyna. He argued to those gathered that the decision of the Constitutional Court put an end to Ukraine’s European prospects. “The main fundamental values of the Treaty of Amsterdam have been violated due to this shameful decision!” - said Mr. Nemyrya. “I will remind you that the first attempt to revise the political reform was made by the political force to which Mr. Nemyrya belongs,” Foreign Minister Konstantin Grishchenko objected to him.

However, the EU did not agree with the categorical statement of the opposition politician. Stefan Fule said that in assessing democratic transformations, the EU intends to focus not on the fact of changing the Constitution, but on the course of future local elections: “It is the elections that can put the main democratic stamp on the image of Ukraine.”

Multi-vector policy

Even on Friday morning, Viktor Yanukovych had to answer a question about the vector of development of Ukraine. "If you were elected president today, would you go to Brussels?" — one of the forum participants asked him. “There is such an old proverb, it seems, Ukrainian: 'Boots know the way,'” Mr. Yanukovych avoided answering.

The second time this topic was discussed was on Saturday. At a panel discussion entitled “Ukraine: moving to the East or to the West,” the organizers instructed MEP Elmar Brock, Secretary General of the EurAsEC Customs Union Sergei Glazyev, Grigory Nemyra and the second President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma to find the answer to the main question of the summit. The format of the panel suggested that its participants should answer questions from the audience, but in fact, the lion's share of the conversation was taken up by the dispute between Messrs. Nemyr and Kuchma.

The ex-president began by criticizing the previous government, which chose a course towards European integration, reducing the level of relations with Russia. “To say that we are going both here and there is a multi-vector policy that we have had for 15 years,” Grigory Nemyrya objected to him. This remark offended Leonid Kuchma. “Your Yulia was such a multi-station operator that anyone could be jealous. What, we didn’t see her meetings with Putin? We don’t know the price of signing gas contracts? Is it multi-vector or single-vector?” - he was indignant.

The debate among politicians about whether Ukraine benefited from the signing of gas contracts was interrupted by forum moderator Christy Freeland. "Conclusion: Ukrainian politicians choose the European model. But they want to do it in such a way that Russia does not notice this and does not raise gas prices." However, not all participants in the discussion liked this conclusion. Mr. Glazyev tried to prove that the creation of a free trade zone with the EU would harm Kyiv. “If Ukraine creates an FTA with the EU, will it be able to maintain the existing FTA with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan? A very controversial issue,” said Mr. Glazyev. “As far as I know, there are simply no deep calculations on this issue.” He was supported by Leonid Kuchma, who said that a decrease in trade turnover between Ukraine and the Russian Federation is “like death.” “The issue of compatibility of the two FTAs is indeed very important and very serious,” Ukrainian diplomat Alexander Chaly agreed with them. “Nevertheless, the Ukrainian people have already chosen the direction of integration. We all do European-quality renovations in our houses, and none of us do rush renovations.”

Sergey Sidorenko, Yalta - Kyiv

From Yalta we saw Europe