The EU seems lost and divided about what do with Ukraine, even though Tymoshenko herself in a letter from prison asked the European Union not to junk the EU-Ukraine agreements that have been in negotiations for the last four years.
Leaving Russian pressures aside, the parties of the triangle – EU, Ukrainian government and Tymoshenko – seem stuck in a bitter stalemate, making no progress in achieving their goals.
Just one month ago, before Tymoshenko’s sentence, there was a widespread feeling both inside and outside Ukraine that international pressure, mainly by the EU, would help free Tymoshenko.
Her case became almost a matter of geopolitical choice for Ukraine. The EU message to President Viktor Yanukovych was clear: if you don’t let her out, Europe will reject you and you then may end up in Putin’s Eurasian Union.
This did not help. Tymoshenko was sentenced and stayed in prison. Yanukovych’s October visit to Brussels was cancelled and he flew to Cuba instead. But nothing really changed geopolitically. Ukraine-EU relations just became colder and the West seems to have lost trust in Yanukovych.
Elected in 2010, Yanukovych has been taking since a number of increasingly authoritarian steps in order to centralize power in his newly acquired office. For more than a year, the West largely overlooked these moves. During the five years of Orange rule by ex-President Viktor Yushchenko and Tymoshenko, many Western officials had been suffering from “Ukraine Fatigue.” Against this background, the EU was initially even happy about the stability that Yanukovych’s rule seemed to have brought to Ukraine.
This did not change even when a whole number of former Orange government officials, including eventually opposition leader Tymoshenko, were jailed. There was a belief, among Western observers, that after the former prime minister’s humiliating trial, she would be pardoned. Thus, when Tymoshenko was sentenced for a seven-year prison term, this sent shock waves through Western governments. There was a sense of being cheated by Yanukovych who had allegedly promised Western leaders, specifically German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to adopt a law that would have decriminalized Tymoshenko’s case. Now, Yanukovych claims that he never made such commitments and was misunderstood. Instead, he is now trying to prove that Tymoshenko belongs into prison, initiating yet another criminal case against her, that dates back to the 1990s.
As the Dec. 19 Ukraine-EU summit around the corner, it looks as if time has come for the EU to carry out its threats about punishing the Ukrainian government. Most likely the higher EU officials – Catherine Ashton, José Manuel, Herman Van Rompuy – will not dignify Ukraine with their presence. Yanukovych, in his turn, has hinted several times that he may go to Moscow on that day.
According the EU official, during the summit the sides with only declare that negotiations on the of association agreement (AAs) and deep and comprehensive free-trade area (DCFTA) are over. Initialization the agreement will then take place in the beginning of the next year. The final sighing ceremony would take place not earlier than beginning of summer, after all 27 member states agree with it, which is very unlikely to happen if Ukraine still has “political prisoners” by then.
The question is left where is the line between punishing the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government.
On the side of the EU there is insufficient understanding of the depth of alienation between the Ukrainian people and authorities.
The current setback in the relations with the EU does not frustrate Yanukovych and Co. much. Instead, it hits, above all, young Ukrainians who see their country’s future in Europe, and connect their professional and political lives with European integration. Many of them have become bitter. Just as the quarrels between Tymoshenko and Yushchenko after the Orange Revolution closed the window for an EU membership perspective, today the political war between Yanukovych and Tymoshenko is jeopardizing Ukraine’s European future, in principal. If the EU holds or postpones the Association Agreement, it will punish less Yanukovych and his government than millions of Ukrainians.
Europeans are often asking: why then aren’t Ukrainians massively protesting Tymoshenko’s imprisonment? Or why aren’t Ukrainians demanding more forcefully EU integration? Or why Ukrainians do not have a clear view of where they want to be – with Russia or with Europe.
The answers to these questions have to do with the frustration of the people with both, Ukrainian politicians, as well as the integration power of Europe itself.
Ukraine was for 20 years a relatively free country. Nevertheless, the most it achieved was the status of an EU Eastern Neighborhood Policy and later Eastern Partnership program member that also includes such manifestly authoritarian countries as Azerbaijan and Belarus.
Ukrainians feel they are not welcome in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have had ambivalent experiences when applying for travel visas at Western consulates, which make them feel as second-class Europeans. Ukrainians compare the restrictive Western travel regime with Russia’s free one which does not make any restrictions. Even so, according to a recent poll by Kyiv’s reputed RazumkovCenter, around 60 percent of Ukrainians support Ukraine’s integration into Europe.
As for Tymoshenko, she got discredited through various political scandals and her heavy-handed interference into Ukraine’s emerging market economy. Given this, it was no surprise that society did hardly react to the imprisonment of the opposition’s foremost leader. Many Ukrainians see the jailing of Tymoshenko as an expression of the fight of two equally corrupt politico-economic clans, even when they feel sorry for her on a personal level and see that her imprisonment is unjust. Notably, that Tymoshenko’s party ratings did not go up after her imprisonment according the recent polls by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (Tymoshenko’sByuT – 20% vs. Yanukovych’s Regions party -25% ).
As for geopolical choices of Ukrainians, what would one expect from a population of a state with weak middle class and where many are busy organizing their daily survival? Millions depend on minimal pensions and state salaries that are two little to live on and too much to die.
Common Ukrainians are not really following the bureaucratic details of the EU-Ukraine negotiations. As a result of October EU-Ukraine Tymoshenko-related tensions, two thousand of Kyevans, mostly NGO activists, journalists, officials, formed a group “We-Europeans” on Facebook and then started to gather in the street every week to show that they really care about Ukrainian integration into the EU. Needless to say, as it always happens with on-line communities, in real life they gather in much smaller numbers than online.
As has become clear by now, Yanukovych’s and his entourages’ primary concern is personal wealth, power and comfort. Ukraine’s pro-Western or -Eastern orientation has little meaning for them. They may simply choose the option that better fits their current private needs.
At this moment, keeping Tymoshenko in prison is more valuable for Yanukovych than Ukraine’s integration with Europe. He is hurt by the 2004 revolution and afraid of Tymoshenko’s skills to mobilize protest movements. After becoming President, Yanukovych became more deeply involved into business schemes of the “oligarchs”. He built the house of his dreams in the Kyivan historical area of Mezhehiriya which has the size of Hyde Park. He may be simply afraid that all this can be taken away from him.
This is especially true now, when Ukraine is seeing more massive and aggressive public protests of socially vulnerable segments of population, like pensioners, Afghan war or Chernobyl vets, whose payments were cut by the government.Last week a Chernobyl veteran died as riot police was clearinga tent camp in Donetsk. Developments like these are leading to more and more references to the Arab spring scenario for Ukraine.
The West should think how is it possible to channel this pro-democratic energy of Ukrainian people without alienating them from Europe even further.
Olena Tregub is a freelance journalist.
