NATO will always keep its doors open for Ukraine, Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer declared on Oct. 19, when he met with President Yushchenko. The next day the permanent representatives of NATO member countries began a visit to Ukrainian regions to explain NATO to the public. Does the visit of the alliance’s leadership mark a breakthrough? How justified are Ukraine’s expectations of joining NATO in 2008?
A SUCCESSFUL VISIT. WHAT ARE THE RESULTS?
Questioned about the possibility that Ukraine will join NATO in 2008, the secretary general replied, “We must focus on the process and not get tied up in concrete deadlines, calendars, months, and years. I can’t say anything specific about this.” The main thing is that Ukraine wants to carry out appropriate reforms, Scheffer says. A different response could hardly be expected. Did the NATO leadership’s visit justify Kyiv’s expectations? Yes and no. Both sides emphasized that the current talks are taking place in an atmosphere of complete trust. “Before, there was distrust and dissatisfaction. Now the atmosphere has changed to one of enthusiasm,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Borys Tarasiuk said, quoting a NATO envoy. “You’re absolutely right,” Scheffer said. But this is not a recent achievement. The attitude of Ukraine’s Western partners turned favorable practically right after the Orange Revolution. Today’s friendly climate at the consultations is nothing but the use of the credit that the Ukrainian leadership received a year ago. Today, the switch to Intensified Dialog (the format of contacts with NATO on the road to membership in this organization) is perhaps the only achievement of the post-revolutionary period in Ukraine-NATO relations.
However, this level of relations is rather low, considering that the majority of Ukrainian experts (and many Ukrainian diplomats) expected admission to NATO in 2008. In the next three years Ukraine will first have to join the Membership Action Plan (if this document is successfully implemented, a country becomes a member of the alliance), then conduct admission talks, and then wait for the parliaments of the 26 NATO member countries to ratify the protocol on Ukraine’s admission. During this rather short period of time Kyiv should face its most complex test, a referendum on Ukraine’s membership. Actually, NATO’s normative documents do not provide for any plebiscites for a country to join this organization. NATO representatives are constantly monitoring Ukraine’s development, so they are fully informed about the positive and negative response of the Ukrainian public. It looks as though this referendum is extra precaution for the Ukrainian leadership to use in debates with domestic political opponents. ‘See, 60 percent have voted in favor of joining, so we must comply with their will.’ But 60 percent is still a dream; it will take Herculean efforts to realize it by means of large-scale information work. So far this effort has not gone beyond discussions concerning the need for such work. (For further details on this subject, see p. 3)
Various polls indicate that Ukraine’s entry into NATO is supported by roughly 20 to 25 percent of the population. A few days ago Ilko Kucheriv, director of the Democratic Initiatives Fund, said that only 7 percent of the population is adequately informed about NATO, even though Ukraine became a special partner of this organization in 1997, and Kyiv decided to join the alliance in 2002. We are approaching the end of 2005, but if the level of popular support for the NATO movement in Ukraine has changed, then these changes are negative. This was especially noticeable during the last presidential elections. There is a strong likelihood that time will continue being wasted, inasmuch as political races are slated to begin soon, this time parliamentary ones. Then the NATO card will be played even more energetically. Some political forces in Ukraine have already begun resorting to Cold War rhetoric. Anti-Western populism is once again gaining momentum at various parties’ conventions (surprisingly, not just the Communist Party of Ukraine). Parties that support Ukraine’s membership in NATO (including the ruling People’s Union “Our Ukraine”) do not seem prepared to engage in an open discussion of the advantages of Euro-Atlantic integration with their opponents. As a result, once again NATO may fall victim to political backbiting. Then what will happen to the NATO membership plans three years from now?
NATO TRUSTS BUT WANTS TO MAKE SURE
Recounting their conversations with Ukrainian colleagues, Western diplomats interviewed by The Day admitted that Ukrainian politicians are not ready to conduct a frank discussion with the public about the alliance. However, these diplomats said that the Ukrainian establishment has promised to deal seriously with the question of integration in NATO after the elections. Obviously, Brussels believes this, although it is acting on the principle “trust but make sure.” This is probably why Ukraine has not obtained NATO’s consent to join the Membership Action Plan.
In keeping with an old tradition, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer emphasized that free and fair parliamentary elections will be an important milestone on the road to Ukraine’s integration with NATO. This does not mean, of course, that NATO countries are questioning Ukraine’s democratic orientation. They are more concerned about the possibility of changes in Kyiv’s foreign policy after the elections. Imagine this situation: Ukraine joins the Membership Action Plan, and six months later new political forces come to power and announce changes in national strategic objectives, including the security sphere. NATO would then find itself in an embarrassing situation, to put it mildly. Of course, the alliance has negotiated a number of sharp fluctuations in the political moods of its candidate member countries. For example, a referendum in Slovakia several years ago made it clear the public was against the alliance, but a subsequent plebiscite yielded a positive result. It is quite possible that NATO does not want to repeat this experience, considering Ukraine’s “consistent” foreign political stand until now (EU or SES; join WTO alone or simultaneously with Russia; join NATO or steer clear of it; the Odesa-Brody pipeline in direct or reverse mode).
NATO has promised to help Ukraine. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer once again emphasized that “NATO’s door will be kept open. Since this organization relies on practical results, reforms in Ukraine must be carried out and NATO will help. Practical matters speak louder than words.” The Secretary General also believes that NATO must be explained to Ukrainian citizens. That, according to Scheffer, is why NATO envoys are now visiting various regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Odesa, and Kharkiv — to tell the people about the advantages Ukraine will obtain after joining the alliance.
