On Sept. 18 the Cabinet of Ministers proudly announced the formal approval of the draft Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, thus completing the technical procedure for signing the treaty at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the end of November. However, to actually sign the agreement, Ukraine needs to take a number of legal steps.
Ukraine’s parliament leading up to Sept. 19 made the first ones by approving five requisite bills. They set the re-election date for five parliamentary seats in single-mandate districts, strengthen judicial independence, improve prison conditions for inmates, change customs tariffs and regulate the enforcement of court decisions. Kostiantyn Yelisieiev, Commissioner of Ukraine for foreign policy and integration processes, says the first step has not gone unnoticed.
“Even the biggest pessimists or skeptics could realize that indeed for this couple of months Ukraine did a lot in order to meet the (EU signing) criteria,” Yelisieiev says. “All these reforms have been long-awaited since the 1990s, when Ukraine became a member of the Council of Europe and only right now Ukraine started finally doing what needed to be done many years ago.”
Most of the legal requirements boil down to three blocks. One is related to electoral legislation, another relates to reforming the judicial system, and the third to a general overhaul of Ukraine’s governance in line with the EU-Ukraine association agenda, according to Yelisieiev.
A draft law on prosecutorial reform has also been sent to the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional issues, Yelisieiev added with regard to the first two blocks.
To check the third and last box, the government has now approved a public finance management strategy, and the legislature on Sept. 19 apdopted a bill amending the Constitution to give more powers to parliament’s Accounting Chamber, which monitors government spending.
These constitutional amendments, if approved by the Constitutional Court and parliament, will create an institutional framework for the judiciary in line with recommendations set forth by the Venice Commission, says Igor Davydenko, a partner of the Kyiv office of Dentons, an international law firm.
“Still, with no political will to immediately overhaul the corruption-ridden and selective justice prone judiciary, these amendments are unlikely to bring about tangible results in the foreseeable future,” Davydenko adds.
Davydenko’s caution in cheering is shared by many.
“In theory, I would positively appraise the recent changes,” says Valeriy Chaly, deputy head of international issues at Razumkov think tank and one of Ukraine’s leading experts on European integration. “However, the most important draft laws haven’t reached the session hall yet.”
His reference is to the law on prosecutorial reform that would turn a post-Soviet monster serving the incumbent authorities into a modern and independent institution. The institution was key in sending to prison many members of the opposition, most notably ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whose release is also viewed as essential for signing the Association Agreement.
Chaly says that there are other issues that came about after the top EU legal criteria were set last year. One of them was the Constitutional Court’s decision on May 30 to postpone the Kyiv mayoral and city council elections to 2015. The capital has not had an elected mayor for more than a year, and the city council’s term has also run out, leaving the city in legal limbo.
Elmar Brok, a member of the European Parliament, and chairman of the committee of foreign affairs has also noted that elections in Kyiv were among the essential prerequisites for signing the Association Agreement.
“It is increasingly clear that signature in November of the Association Agreement with Ukraine, followed by a fast track ratification process, is possible when three clear conditions are met – the immediate release of Yulia Tymoshenko, progress on broader judicial reform with urgent priority focused on the Office of the General Prosecutor and electoral reform, and, finally, the swift holding of elections for the mayor of Kyiv,” Brok said on July 5 following his meeting with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite in Vilnius.
The issue of Tymoshenko’s potential release also presents a number of legal challenges to the authorities. Many in the government dispute the very relevance of her release to the issue of signing.
“In my view, these are two different things (the case of Tymoshenko and signing the Association Agreement),” Yelisieiev says. He does admit, though, that her case is a part of the greater selective justice issue in Ukraine.
“I do believe that signing and proper implementation of the agreement will create conditions for solving the issues of selective justice in Ukraine,” he says.
In her recent written interview to Ukrainska Pravda, an online publication, Tymoshenko also hoped that the Association Agreement will be signed. “Today I don’t have doubt that despite global resistance, Ukraine has made its historical European choice and Ukraine will sign the Association Agreement for sure and will become a full member of the EU even sooner than we expect,” she wrote.
“In my view Ukraine (should) and will sign the Association Agreement at the end of November. The European Union and Ukraine are working hard to meet this objective, Yelisieiev says. “We don’t have any hidden agenda, we don’t have any plan B.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected].
