British ex-Prime Minister David Cameron gave a public lecture to an audience of university students and young leaders in Kyiv on March 29 at the invitation of Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
Cameron’s visit coincided with the formal beginning of Brexit procedures in the United Kingdom, reminding of his role in Britain’s historic decision to break away from the European Union, thus forcing Cameron, who campaigned against it, to step down as prime minister.
Cameron decided to mark the day by heading to Ukraine – a nation which he never visited while in office from 2010 to 2016.
Even his family seemed confused about his trip.
“When my 13-year-old daughter heard I was going to Kyiv, she thought it had to do with Eurovision song contest,” Cameron said.
While he said singing isn’t on his agenda, it’s not clear what he plans to do.
The Financial Times said his Conservative Party colleagues were urging Cameron to try to become the next NATO secretary general, but he was reportedly reluctant to take the role. He confirmed it in Kyiv, too. When asked about the NATO job possibility, Cameron joked that his wife wouldn’t want to move to Brussels.
“It would put an end to our marriage, and I wouldn’t want that,” he said, to which Pinchuk jokingly asked if a move to Kyiv would be a more pleasant option – only to receive a dead-serious response about Cameron’s spouse’s busy life in London.
Cameron gave a 30-minute speech about Ukraine’s place in the modern world that revolved around safe points like Britain’s diplomatic and military support of Ukraine and the post-EuroMaidan Revolution reforms. He followed with a Q&A session, taking questions from the students of Kyiv universities and Pinchuk himself.
Cameron never made it to Ukraine during his six years in office, which he said he regrets. But he did visit Ukraine once – in 1985, when he was taking a year off before university. He recalled visiting a resort city Yalta in Crimea.
“The two men who came to talk to me on the beach were probably KGB agents,” he said, half-jokingly. “Not to join KGB was a very good decision.”
The Crimea from Cameron’s memories has now been occupied by Russia for three years.
Cameron’s stance on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is waffling.
The ex-premier denounced Russia’s attempt to redraw borders, especially after “Europe fought two world wars because someone wanted to redraw borders,” he said. He advocated Ukraine’s inviolable right to decide its future.
But he also noted that Russia will always be Ukraine’s neighbor and that dialogue will have to be found.
“Sharing global challenges means we have to work with our neighbors,” he said.
This seemed to fall in line with Pinchuk’s own call for a compromise with Russia which he infamously declared in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in December, only to meet reproach in Ukraine.
Praise for reforms
For a European leader who omitted Ukraine while in office, Cameron did his homework: He mentioned the key post-revolutionary reforms and anti-corruption efforts, like forming Anti-Corruption Bureau and introducing electronic declarations for public officials.
Cameron’s praised the pace of reforms, continuously stressing how remarkable it was that Ukraine achieved so much in three years despite also having to defend itself against Russia.
“There is a lot to be done, but let’s go back and look at what you’ve done already,” Cameron said. “Vladimir Putin hoped that your country would fall apart but it didn’t and you should be proud.”
Succeeding as a nation would be the best security strategy for Ukraine, Cameron argued. “The more you can succeed the more you demonstrate that Russia failed in their intentions,” he said.
Cameron names two main obstacles that threaten Ukraine’s progress.
One is the risk of falling out of the international agenda.
“I saw it happening in Georgia,” he said, referring to Russia’s 2008 invasion of northern Georgia. “It wasn’t long before the world’s attention (went away). There was a shrug of shoulders, an acceptance of an unacceptable status quo.”
The second challenge is securing support from U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s administration.
“U.S. should have a dialogue and build a bilateral relationship with Russia, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of Eastern and Central Europe,” Cameron said. “You won’t make America great again by making Eastern Europe weak again.”
Corruption and challenges
While he was generous in compliments when speaking about Ukraine’s reform efforts, Cameron said the level of corruption in Ukraine is still “absolutely unacceptable.”
Before the lecture, Cameron met separately with President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. “The cancer of corruption” was one of the topics of discussion at those meetings, Cameron said.
Cameron advocates a three-component antidote to corruption: fair taxes, free trade, and greater transparency.
The West, in his opinion, doesn’t realize how much Ukraine’s corruption is entangled with the multitude of state-owned companies.
There are over 3,500 state enterprises in Ukraine today, 1,000 of which the government plans to close as ineffective. Cameron said he favors privatizing state enterprises, citing the experience of the U.K.
“Our transport companies, steel companies… They were loss-making disasters, but now they are beating the world,” he said.
In May, when Cameron was still in office, he hosted a landmark Anti-Corruption Summit in London – an international event that discussed the possibility of a joint effort to fight corruption.
The destination, London, had a special meaning: It is to this world capital that the rich of the world bring their money seeking bank security and high-end real estate – and at least some of the money is being laundered from illicit scheming in the world’s poorest nations.
“Corruption isn’t a problem that can be solved just by countries that are corrupt,” Cameron said, speaking about the summit. “It needs action from countries that think they aren’t corrupt but where this money is hidden. I’m proud of this conference – no one ever wants to hold a corruption conference because no government is entirely clean of it.”
Now that he isn’t in office anymore, Cameron is concerned over who can pick up the global anti-corruption discussion. While his successor Theresa May “will do what she can,” Cameron urges the leaders of other countries to take action and host the follow-up event.
