Stay the course.
That was the overriding message of those who spoke at the 8th Kyiv Security Forum.
The May 28-29 conference came just a week after the Eastern Partnership summit in Riga, Latvia, where Ukraine and the European Union signed an agreement on 1.8 billion euros in loans to Ukraine.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the EU will help stabilize Ukraine economically but repeated his country’s position that there is no military solution to Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine.
“We have a roadmap, called Minsk. No one knows better than me that it’s far from being perfect, but for the time being it’s the only chance that we have,” he said on May 29. “We Europeans are there as your partners.”
Steinmeier said sanctions against Russia will stay in place until the Minsk peace agreements, signed on Feb. 12, are implemented. The peace deal requires a cease-fire, as well as the withdrawal of the weaponry from the contact line and engagement of all sides to find a solution for the currently occupied territories.
Member of the European Parliament Andrej Plenkovic also said he expects sanctions to stay on Russia. He said that the EU expects economic and political reforms from Ukraine — including changes to the constitution as well as election and judicial system.
He called the EU’s support of Ukraine significant.
“In the midst of war, in the midst of agression against Ukraine, you had basically the simultaneous ratification of the Association Agreement in the (Verkhovna) Rada and European Parliament. That is something unique. The financial assistance is very big,” he said on May 28. “Ukraine, in terms of budgetary external financing, for the EU is the top priority.”
According to Steven Pifer, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the West can and should be doing more to help Ukraine and toughen sanctions against Russia.
”I don’t know the specific steps, but when I talk to people in the American government, they say that, on a scale from one to 10 for sanctions, the Western sanctions are about a four, and they say there are a lot of additional things they can do,” Pifer told the Kyiv Post on May 28. “Both in terms of targeting additional companies in the defense, in the financial and the energy sectors, but also broadening the sanctions to the other sectors of Russian economy. And we’ve seen those sanctions can do significant damage.”
Ukraine can help its case by trying harder to shed corruption and Soviet ways.
“No, it would be wrong to say that there is no progress, but still it is not enough. So far, the critical mass of reforms is not achieved,” said Kalman Mizsei, the chairman of the EU advisory mission on civil security sector reform in Ukraine, at the second day of the forum.
Stephan De Spiegeleire of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies said the “Soviet system is still very visible, large bureaucracy, corruption, inefficient mechanisms, obsession with laws that supposed to change. People want to see real change, right? And of course it needs to be done legislatively, but it’s going so slowly.”
Andrej Pildegovich, the state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, said Ukraine should lobby its interests more actively abroad.
“Many people to the west of Berlin have very vague understanding what is Ukraine,” he said on May 29. “Your politicians, diplomats, business people must be much, much more outspoking, constructive, defending their issues, present, what Ukraine is about.”
Konstantin Yeliseev, representative of Ukraine to the EU, also said the EU “should explain to its citizens, why we should help Ukraine.”
He said that “Europe should understand that peace and political stability on the continent are more important than economic interests of individual countries of the EU.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]
