Russia is displeased with the situation around the Single Economic Space, citing the problems in its relationship with Ukraine and Belarus as the main reasons. However, the official who made this revealing statement did not specify the reasons behind the problems that have lead to the hampering of this yet undecided project.
Complications in Russia’s bilateral relationship with Ukraine and Belarus adversely affect the general course of creating the SES and working out long-term decisions in this direction, Russia’s Vice Premier Viktor Khristenko said last Wednesday. “This gives way to mutual mistrust, and I don’t have illusions that this does not affect our joint efforts to create the SES,” he said. Simultaneously, Khristenko stressed that the signed documents on the SES contain a complete set of goals, tasks, and ways to perform them, which rules out any ambiguity. “From the viewpoint of integration, the documents are clearer than Europe’s Roman Treaty,” Khristenko said, adding that a specific action plan to implement the signed documents for the next few years should be signed before December 1. It should include all four directions: goods, services, capital, and manpower markets. “We have a relevant project that has already been discussed four times. Today experts started their work on it,” the vice premier said.
Speaking about problems, there are a good many of them. Ukraine has repeatedly stated that the Tuzla crisis will have (and no doubt already has had) a negative impact on the ratification of the SES documents. Although last Wednesday President Kuchma urged the sides to distinguish between the border issue and the SES project, it was exactly the Tuzla situation that has caused Ukraine to adopt a more pragmatic and, most importantly, more cautious strategy in its relationship with Russia. The more so that Russian diplomats do not even hide their true intentions regarding the SES. A free trade zone for Russia is only the first stage of the integration process. This will be followed by a customs alliance, and, eventually, a common currency. Considering Western politicians’ concerns over the new alliance, Ukraine should not rush to go ahead with some dubious integration that runs counter to all previously declared goals of its foreign policy. Incidentally, Belarus also does not have too much trust in the SES. Recently a source in Belarusian Foreign Ministry said that Minsk sees no point in going ahead with the SES, if Ukraine refuses to participate. So far Belarus obviously avoids stating in public that it is not Ukraine’s position that jeopardizes the project but precisely Russia’s concept of the union and, moreover, Russia’s policy toward the two countries. There is obviously some substance to the recently circulated rumors that Aliaksandr Lukashenka will seek closer relations with Kyiv to limit Moscow’s influence on Belarusian politics.
As it became known, half of Ukraine’s population (52%) does not support ratifying the SES agreement in the wording approved in Yalta on September 19, 2004. Evidence of this are the data from a poll conducted by the Ukrainian Democratic Circle on November 1-9 upon request from the Institute of Politics. Asked how Verkhovna Rada should act on the SES agreement, 19% of those polled said the agreement should not be ratified at all, while 33% believe that it can be ratified after the clauses that run counter to the Constitution have been removed. Only 14% of those polled support the ratification of the agreement signed by the president. Another 33% failed to answer this question. According to the same poll, 68% of Ukrainians think that the fact that Russia began building a dam in the Kerch Strait near Tuzla Island without having previously negotiated it with Ukraine is a display of Russia’s disrespect for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
