President Viktor Yanukovych evidently
told European Union Commissioner Stefan Fuele that he has no plan of signing
the association agreement in Vilnius, Lithuania, during the Nov. 28-29 summit,
according to a diplomatic source in Kyiv.
Another source says Foreign Minister
Leonid Kozhara told something similar to Jan Tombinski, the EU ambassador in
Ukraine. Yet other sources are reporting other versions, but a similar essence.
Coupled with the clear unwillingness of
the pro-presidential forces in parliament to move on laws that open the door
for closer European integration, a recent change in rhetoric to pro-Russian and
many more minor distress signals, it seems that chances of signing are minuscule.
Although top Ukrainian and European
officials have been tight-lipped about the current state of negotiations, the
anxiety over the fate of the association agreement in Kyiv is becoming
borderline hysterical. Nor does it help that the situation seems to be changing
by the minute.
The decision to ditch the signing, if it
really has been taken, might not be final – are any of them ever in Ukraine?
High-level negotiations continue with
Fuele and special European envoys Pat Cox, the former president of the European
Parliament, and Alexander Kwasniewski, the former president of Poland.
Fuele canceled a meeting with the
opposition on Nov. 19 to concentrate on talks with the government, while
Ukraine’s ambassador to the EU, Kostyantyn Yeliseev, abruptly canceled all
engagements in Brussels on Nov. 20 to fly to Kyiv for high-level talks.
Some in the opposition believe that
Yanukovych is bluffing to raise the stakes with the EU, which (at least in part) is desperate to
have a success story in Ukraine, and has been relaxing conditions and moving
deadlines to achieve it. The president might get some perks offered, but the
dominating feeling among EU officials is disappointment and a sense of
betrayal.
Many are now sending out the warning
that if Ukraine misses the opportunity, another one might not come up for
a long time.
Dalia Grybauskaite, the president of
Lithuania, told Agence France Press on Nov. 19 that there will be a long pause
in the relationship between Ukraine and EU if Ukraine fails to sign in Vilnius.
“There are no guarantees that it could
be signed after a year or two… The pause in relations may take a very long
period of time,” she said.
Diplomats in Ukraine say the next opportunity
will not come about for five or even 10 years. This means Ukraine has missed
another historic chance in the same style it wasted the momentum of the 2004
Orange Revolution and the 2008 possibility of getting a road map for joining
NATO.
The idea of joining NATO one day has sunk into
obscurity since then. The idea of closer EU is likely to remain in a coma for
years to come – not just for internal reasons in Ukraine. The EU will now know
that Ukraine cannot deliver what is expected. If a handful laws could not be
approved since the association agreement was initialed in March 2012, then how
likely are they to be implemented?
Moreover, the European Parliament will be
re-elected in 2014, and its next composition will probably be more unfavorable
for Ukraine. Nationalist forces are expected to perform well across Europe,
pushing the idea of EU expansion, associations and closer relations with
neighbors ever further from the agenda.
And then, in 2015, Ukraine will have a
presidential election that is unlikely to be the most democratic one the nation
has ever had. Combine that with a renewed Ukraine fatigue – and it’s clear that
Europe will remain a dream on the horizon of 58 percent of Ukrainians, who
would like to be in Europe, according to a recent Deutsche Welle poll.
So, what did Europe do wrong?
In his Nov. 18 op-ed for Rzeczpospolita, Polish European Parliament member Pawel Zalewski said
that there is a fundamental difference between the way EU and Ukrainian
officials operate. EU views the potential association as a civilizational
choice. Hence all the talk about selective justice, values et al.
For Ukraine, overcoming economic
problems trumps it all. Tactical choices make the game, particularly if they
are seasoned nicely with prospects of personal benefits.
As one diplomat in Kyiv recently put in,
“no-one will come from Brussels and put cash on the table.” This is exactly the
problem – but only one of many.
It seems that EU’s offer was less attractive
for the authorities than the one Russia was capable of making. The highly
conditional, abstract, long-term deal that Ukraine would get in case it signed
the deep and comprehensive free trade agreement and the greater association
agreement simply does not compare with the sweet pile of cash (and other
benefits) on the table that Russia offers now.
Backed up with bullying in the form of trade
wars and threats to send industry in eastern Ukraine into a knockout for months if not
years, Russia truly has a winning combination of cards. Seeing core
constituencies wither is not an option for either Yanukovych or his Party of
Regions.
Actually, the West could have easily used the
same tactic with Ukraine. For example, law enforcers in Austria could suddenly
start talking about assets that belong to Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s son.
Better still the Dutch law enforcers could have looked more closely into the
assets of Oleksandr Yanukovych, the elder son of the president, over there.
And then, there is the whole issue of gasoline
trade with Belize. It is conducted by young multimillionaire Serhiy Kurchenko’s
companies. He is believed to a member of the president’s inner circle. His
business worth hundreds of millions of dollars suddenly appeared in Ukraine’s
2012-2013 national statistics, but failed to be recorded by the Belize
authorities, suggesting kinky schemes involving offshore companies and
accounts.
Ukrainian officials’ fear of public
embarrassment, discoveries and clampdowns could have made an abstract European
offer more attractive.
But just
like the EU has nobody capable of operating in the language that Yanukovych and
his inner circle understand, there seem to be few people in his inner circle
who operate in the same language as EU.
So the
messages get lost in translation.
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya
Gorchinskaya can be reached at [email protected]
