Germany is a very influential country in the EU. The politics of the European community depends to a great extent on Berlin’s opinion. Will Germany’s policy towards Ukraine change after Viktor Yanukovych becomes its president? What do they expect in Berlin from the new Ukrainian president and from all the country’s top authorities in general? Do German authorities condemn such phenomenon as Berlusconi-style politics? Gerhard Gnauck, a German journalist of Die Welt, spoke with The Day about these questions. Gnauck has been covering events in our country for a long time now and has a good understanding of the German diplomacy making.
He is one of the authoritative Europeans, who define the state of journalism. Last year he has presented his book Wolke und Weide. Marcel Reich-Ranickis polnische Jahre in the Ye bookstore in Kyiv.
Then in his interview for The Day Gnauck said that he loved “Ukraine because it never was and has no ambitions to be an empire; it does not want to rule over its neighbors against their will; it is an embodiment of unity in diversity.”
Gnauck was born in 1964 in Warsaw and studied history, Slavistics, and political science in Mainz and Western Berlin. Since 1988 he has been working as a journalist: from 1995 through 1998 in F.A.Z. (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) in the department of politics. Since 1999 he has been covering events in Poland and Ukraine for Die Welt in Warsaw.
There exists an opinion in Ukraine that many European politicians do not quite understand what is happening in Ukraine. The understanding of the processes that take place in our country depends to a great extent on the qualifications of diplomatic missions of the EU countries in Ukraine. Are the diplomats specially trained to fulfill their mission before they come to Ukraine?
“As is well known, diplomats change the place of their work every three or four years. Diplomats who don’t know the language can work in embassies in Kyiv, Moscow, or any other place. What concerns Germany, last year in Berlin the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs together with the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs held for the first time a seminar at which they had discussions and tried to bring to consensus the positions of both countries on the EU’s eastern neighbors. I got the impression that the analysis of both Poles and Germans was very similar. However, they worked out different practical approaches and action plans.”
Don’t you think that many Western leaders congratulated Yanukovych with winning the elections too quickly? It was obvious that his opponent would appeal to court about the elections results.
“The voting results of 48 percent against 45 percent are a small gap for a young democracy. However, for old democratic societies it is quite significant. Taking into account the fact that past parliamentary elections were acknowledged by the foreign observers to be ‘free and fair’ and also the fact that now the candidate who later spoke about falsifications had been the head of the Cabinet during the elections and theoretically could have used administrative resourse to some extent, I am not surprised that this time the observers and later the Western leaders have recognized the results of the elections as being accurate.
“There was an impression that even if there were any falsifications, they would be in favor of Yanukovych in eastern Ukraine and in Tymoshenko’s favor in western Ukraine. Therefore, there were no systematic falsifications that would be controlled from the center as it was in 2004.
I think that it would be fair to congratulate Yanukovych with his victory.
“On the other hand, I am aware that observers’ abilities can be restricted in some situations. In these elections there were such phenomena like ‘I’ll sell my vote,’ which means I will take a picture of the ballot with my cell phone; vanishing ink pens for voting; backdoor pressure on district commissions members, who were threatened to loose their jobs. All of these, except the last one, are new tricks, and it takes time to figure them out. I was an OSCE observer during the elections in Russia in 1993, and there were no such phenomena there then.”
Will it be easier for the German Chancellor Angela Merkel to deal with Yanukovych that it could be with Tymoshenko, who is said to have good relations with her?
“It all depends, above all, on Yanukovych and the new government. However, there is a chance that they will have positive relations. If we look at things optimistically, maybe it is just that radical reformers like Yegor Gaidar and Tymoshenko are capable of breaking the old and destroy the stagnation system. However, they are not able to take advantage of this success. Some other power comes and if it has enough wisdom, it should take all the best things from its predecessor, use his ideas, and start building.”
How will Germany’s position towards Ukraine change after Yanukovych takes office? After these elections, will Berlin keep supporting the idea that the EU should be more open for Ukraine and in such a way stimulate it to carry out reforms that are needed for integration into the EU?
“In June 2009, the heads of Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Germany and Poland visited Kyiv with an extraordinary mission. They came to tell Ukrainian politicians that their country is in danger, particularly in economic danger. They also stressed that there was a great need for uniting efforts of all the power branches because of the crisis. Then Prime Minister Tymoshenko said that they only had to wait for the presidential elections results and then things will get better. One of the guests replied to that, ‘Excuse me, what exactly will get better? The leading politicians will remain the same.’ There is a strong desire that this bitter forecast, which says that politicians haven’t learned anything and that the mutual blockade in the country will continue in 2010, will not come true.
“Ukraine is now not in the foreground of European politics. Therefore, it is even more important that the new president and his team, regardless of who will be in it, could suggest clear, realistic goals and would take the first steps to implement them. They have to show that Ukraine is not only capable of conducting free and fair elections and having pluralism and freedom of speech, but can also manage itself. Germany itself will not take any significant steps. After all it is too soon to say anything now.
“I strongly hope that given his bad image abroad because of his past, Yanukovych will do everything to change this image with his words and actions. I also hope that Tymoshenko will show us the work of decisive and attentive opposition which will be responsible but not populist at the same time. The Orange Revolution, which I was lucky to witness in Kyiv, showed that there are wise and mature citizens in Ukraine. Now it’s the turn of politicians to show the same thing about them.”
