Yesterday was one of those days that can go down in history and influence the destiny of future generations. Do the people who just yesterday were demonstrating thoughtlessly in the squares of Ukraine understand this?
There was no miracle at the NATO summit in the Romanian capital. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization did not reach any consensus on giving Ukraine the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), and our country did not receive the positive signal that it was expecting.
I don’t want to rub salt into our wounds at the moment, so an analysis of the reasons lies ahead. Long before the Bucharest summit it was clear which countries were against giving the MAP to Ukraine at the NATO summit in Bucharest. They offered concrete reasons for their possible refusal: Ukrainian society is not ready. These were primarily Germany and France. The Benelux countries as well as Spain and Italy were also mentioned. Oddly, Hungary, which shares a border with our country, joined them at the last minute.
Certainly, the leaders of these countries can be blamed for trying too hard and reckoning with the Russian factor, which is present in their energy sphere and joint economic projects, and sometimes even in their personal contacts. As one Ukrainian diplomat admitted, no one admits this, and no one ever will. This leads to the question: is someone from the outside directing these countries?
Germany may be right in saying that the Ukrainian government had not prepared properly for the Bucharest summit and was banking on a miracle. After all, the program for informing the people of Ukraine about NATO never started, a fact that President Yushchenko admitted at the press conference with his American counterpart. Could any other result have been anticipated? Will the Ukrainian government draw the proper conclusions from the decision passed by the North Atlantic Council? Will there be enough will for the future?
It is time for Kyiv to determine how to accept this decision and the words of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. “NATO welcomes the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Ukraine and Georgia. We have agreed that these countries will become members of the Alliance,” he said at the press conference.
Kyiv should also carefully study the following communique: “The Membership Action Plan is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their way to membership. Along with this, we are entering a period of intensive political contacts with both countries on a high political level in order to resolve the questions that remain for moving toward the fulfillment of the MAP. We have charged the ministries of foreign affairs to make the first assessment of achieved progress at the meeting in December 2008. The foreign ministries will be responsible for approving the decision concerning Ukraine and Georgia’s applications.”
Kyiv may also have to pay attention to the tone of the statements that were issued by Berlin and Paris. These statements seem less categorical. For example, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy considers the aspirations of Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO to be legitimate, but he stresses that Tbilisi and Kyiv will have to go through democratic changes. “We will continue to work with them and encourage them to implement democratic reforms,”
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel also recognized that her country’s unwillingness to give the MAP to Ukraine is not categorical and eternal. “The door is open. But at the same time it is too early to grant the MAP status to these two countries,” she noted.
As Natalia Churikova, a journalist at Radio Liberty, told The Day, Merkel did not give a direct answer at the conference as to why Germany opposed giving the MAP to Ukraine and Georgia at this time. According to Churikova, none of the countries that supported Germany and France answered this question either.
According to diplomatic sources, eight NATO member countries — Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg — are against granting the status of candidate-countries to Ukraine and Georgia because they don’t want to complicate their relations with Russia. The “active support group” is headed by the US and includes Canada, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic.
The Russian side did not like the way the NATO communique was formulated. Commenting on the statement by the Secretary General about the beginning of the consultations and discussions concerning Ukraine and Georgia’s accession to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, declared that “Georgia and Ukraine’s accession to the Alliance is a great strategic mistake that will have serious consequences for all-European security.”
COMMENTARY
Yurii SHCHERBAK, former ambassador of Ukraine to the US:
“I think that the decision reached at the NATO summit was difficult both for them and for us because it asserts in an absolutely clear way that we will be members of the Alliance. This was affirmed by NATO’s Secretary General as well as by the communique. On the other hand, they stated in a realistic way that not all the members of the Alliance are ready to accept Ukraine and Georgia to the MAP. But a new and rather unusual offer to start intensive political consultations on a high political level was immediately made. Another very important thing is that during the meeting in December 2008 the foreign ministries will have to make the first assessment of the progress that has been achieved in Ukraine and Georgia.
“Even if you remove the word ‘MAP,’ it is still there because the continuation of high-level consultations and monitoring of our progress are elements of the MAP. Therefore, the most important thing is that no one said, ‘Ukraine and Georgia, forget about your aspirations to be NATO members forever.’ The only thing is that a very complicated and responsible period for Ukraine has begun, and it may last for two years: a period of special relations with Russia, which, undoubtedly, will not be completely satisfied with this decision and will continue to exercise pressure on Ukraine. Our neighbors are by no means satisfied with the summit’s decision. They were probably expecting a stricter and more humiliating formula. Then they would have been satisfied. Now they will certainly be saying that this was a great victory for Russian diplomacy and for Mr. Rogozin, a well-known “admirer of Ukraine,” who now represents Russia in NATO. But this is not so, because they have left the way open to NATO. Even if the door is not fully open, it is half-open.
“We now have to analyze this document, analyze what the phrase ‘consultations on a high political level’ means. We should focus our attention on Germany and France, on ways to convince them. And we should involve a whole array of specialists in this work: not only professional diplomats and state officials but also experts and non-governmental organizations in order to influence public opinion in these countries and convince them that Ukraine has an indisputable right to become a member of NATO. And, of course, we should implement the plans that were made with regard to joining NATO in order to make a dignified appearance at the meeting in December 2008. All these decisions should be implemented through a concrete broad action plan for Ukraine. This is no time to relax, thinking: we were waiting for the MAP. Maximalist decisions rarely happen in politics. They are made gradually. The key word is movement. This movement has been made in our favor, and we should take advantage of it. But we still have to cover the distance to ultimate victory.
