Significance
The leaders of five EU countries have boycotted the Central and Eastern European summit to be held on May 11-12 in Ukraine. Together with a number of other high-ranking EU officials, they will also not attend European Football Championship co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine in June.
Implications
This coordinated diplomatic move is the first of its kind to force Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to release his political opponent, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, from prison where she is currently on a hunger strike.
Outlook
The effectiveness of the European boycott remains to be seen. However, there is also a risk that that the EU will push Ukraine further away and closer to Russia at a time when Kyiv trying to renegotiate the controversial 2009 gas supply deal signed by Tymoshenko with her Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Divided campaign for human rights
On April 30, Germany spearheaded a diplomatic campaign to force Yanukovych to end what is seen in Europe as the political persecution of Tymoshenko. She is serving a seven-year term in prison after a Kyiv court found her guilty of abuse of power in October 2011.
Tymoshenko continues to dismiss the verdict of overstepping her powers and single-handedly concluding an unfavourable 10-year natural gas supply contract with Russia in 2009 with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The agreement indeed set unfavourable terms for Ukraine. Her former ally in the 2004-05 Orange Revolution and former president Viktor Yushchenko also testified in the proceedings against Tymoshenko.
Aside from this conviction, Tymoshenko is also facing charges of tax evasion and embezzlement of public funds in 1997-98 when she was an MP and also headed United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UES), an energy company trading with Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom. If convicted, she will stay in prison for another 12 years. The EU has long been pressing Ukraine to refrain from the use of selective justice towards political opposition.
The pro-Tymoshenko campaign appears to gain momentum after she declared hunger strike on 20 April initially for five days. She has accused prison staff of mistreating her and not allowing her access to German doctors to help her with her back pain, since she refused to be treated by Ukrainian doctors. In a rare move, the Russian foreign ministry also issued a statement urging the Ukrainian authorities to show "humanity" towards Tymoshenko.
Meanwhile the European Commission has asked the Ukrainian government for clarification over Tymoshenko’s treatment and also urged them to provide her with longer access to her legal team. In a further effort to increase pressure on the Ukrainian authorities, the heads of state of Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic and Slovenia turned down Yanukovych’s invitation to take part in a high-level Central and Eastern European summit in Yalta to be held on May 11-12.
The spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Oleg Voloshin was quoted by Interfax-Ukraine as saying that Estonia may also join them. He went on to say that the presidents of 10 countries will take part in the summit, while four others have also given their preliminary consent to participation.
The boycott will extend not only to the summit in May, but also to the European Football Championship co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine between June 8 and July 1.
This is the single most significant tournament in the history of independent Ukraine, and it was hoped that it would not only give a positive lift to the country’s image but also, and perhaps most importantly, give a shot in the arm to the Ukrainian economy, which has been slow to recover from a dramatic double-digit drop in GDP growth as a result of the global economic crisis.
The German chancellor has urged her ministers to join the boycott, a call supported by the opposition as well. The only exception might be made for Interior Minister Hans Peter Friedrich, who has been quoted as saying that he would travel to Ukraine if the authorities there grant him a visit to Tymoshenko. European Commission president José Manuel Barroso and EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding have also declared that they will not partake in the tournament. But this tactics did not receive universal approval.
The Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Marcin Bosacki has called the boycott a "totally unjustified" measure, saying that sports events should not be politicised.
Bosacki said that Poland, which is also an EU member, has a solid track record of being a vocal defender of Tymoshenko’s rights but he added that, "Yulia Tymoshenko said herself that she didn’t want her personal situation to harm Ukrainian interests". The sharp reaction from the EU brought an equally sharp response from Kiev, as the Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson said that his government was hoping that Merkel in particular was not "capable of reviving the methods of the Cold War and making sport a hostage of politics."
Outlook and implications
The boycott will not apply to German and other European teams participating in the football tournament. But it has already taken the shine off the Ukrainian authorities’ efforts to project a more positive image of the country by hosting the event. Aside from the image issues, the controversy and ensuing incorrect speculations that the games may not take place in Ukraine could also have economic consequences, affecting the flow of tourists and football fans.
The immediate impact of the diplomatic spat is obvious but it also raises a number of issues regarding the long-term effect on Ukrainian foreign policy priorities as well as EU’s foreign policy objectives towards Ukraine. Many of Ukraine’s problems are linked to the 2009 gas contract and the politicians who negotiated it. The details of the boycott appeared as Yanukovych signed into law the amendments made to the energy pipeline law endorsed by parliament on 13 April. It brings Ukrainian regulations into compliance with the EU energy deregulation directive, known as the Third Energy Package, which separates energy extraction and transportation from supply and distribution.
One of the key drivers behind the move was to open the door for potential privatisation of the energy network-currently run by the state-owned Naftogaz Ukrainy-at some stage in the future with the involvement of European energy companies. Ukraine hopes to counterbalance Russia’s persistent advances towards Naftogaz, as demonstrated in the past year’s bilateral gas talks. Russian – Ukrainian negotiations were opened at Kiev’s request to bring down the gas import prices set in the 2009 contract. A three-way (EU-Russia-Ukraine) ownership would probably be the best option for Ukraine. But Russia would like a controlling stake in Naftogaz to secure the unhindered flow of nearly 80% of its EU-bound gas supplies via Ukraine. This prospect is not favoured by Ukraine which fears that it will lose one of its most lucrative assets, Naftogaz, to Russia.
Aside from vying for Ukraine’s energy assets Russia is also pushing for Ukraine’s accession to the troika Custom Union that it currently has with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Here too, Ukraine is looking to the EU. Yanukovych is often being portrayed as a pro-Russian leader in the Western media, nonetheless he declared in 2010 shortly after his election that he will have a balanced foreign policy and would not favour any side. Despite Putin’s persistence, Yanukovych has proceeded with talks and initialling of the Association Agreement and Free Trade Zone Deal with the EU in March this year. The EU has been less than responsive to these overtures, although admittedly signing the Association Agreement is significant progress. Bu the 27-member bloc has made the actual entry into force of the Association Agreement conditional on Tymoshenko’s release. The EU wants to see an end to the obvious political persecution of the former PM, who is being punished for taking arguably a bad decision when signing the 2009 gas deal.
While Yanukovych can criticise her actions when she was a prime minister, imprisonment is a step too far as in that case he himself may need to be held accountable for his previous and current bad political decisions. However, the EU’s approach of boycotting Ukraine and supporting Tymoshenko’s demands for treatment by foreign doctors, and taking at face value all her accounts of torture – disputed by the Ukrainian authorities – is only pushing Yanukovych into a corner, leaving him with little option but to prove, at least to his electoral base, that Tymoshenko is not a martyr of repression but a politician who benefited while in power.
Hence the fresh court cases against Tymoshenko are likely to proceed, as the government would like to see her convicted on solely criminal charges. Of course, given the political dependence of Ukrainian courts, these verdicts will have less relevance in the West but domestically they could be useful for Yanukovych. In terms of foreign policy, the EU’s current tactics of shunning Ukraine is welcome news for Putin, who is due to be inaugurated as president for a third time on May 7. It is likely that some sort of a breakthrough in gas talks with Ukraine will take place shortly afterwards, with Putin’s blessing. But this time Ukraine will have to pay a higher price.
This is because Ukraine’s negotiating position has become weaker, mostly due to Russia’s move to launch the South Stream, a new gas pipeline project to carry Russian gas via the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine. Another factor contributing to this weakness is that the EU appears to lack a coherent policy towards Ukraine. Part of this problem is that in general the EU states are divided often divided on foreign policy issues, even when it comes to the question of participation in a sports tournament. Furthermore, owing to its economic problems the bloc has been and is likely to be inward-looking for some time. Without a consistent foreign policy towards Ukraine, the occasional outbursts of calls for human rights protection and general business environment reforms take prominence, not least because these value-based statements are appealing to EU voters.
But the lack of a clear policy and worst of all, tactics of isolation used towards Ukraine, mean that the bloc will make more noise but have less influence, including on the energy pipelines that are drawn up by Russia with an ultimate impact on the EU or the economic integration projects promoted by Putin. Yanukovych has made a number of wrong turns since coming to power. From his political interests’ point of view one of those mistakes was resurrecting Tymoshenko’s fading political career, which was fizzling out after her defeat in 2010 presidential race by sending her to prison. Yanukovych’s troubles with the EU are likely to push him further down the road that appears to lead to the Kremlin.
Lilit Gevorgyan is a Russia/CIS analyst with IHS Global Insight, Jane’s Information Group at [email protected]
