The latest Ukrainian-EU summit just held in Yalta confirmed the simple truth that Ukraine belongs to Europe not only geographically, for all Europe wants is to finally see real economic, democratic, and political progress in this country. On the other hand, the summit showed that Ukraine still has numerous obstacles to surmount. United Europe has no intention of stepping aside and watching Ukraine wrestle with all these problems on its own, but it will do just that if Ukraine’s European choice remains on paper only, without any practical political and economic steps being taken in that direction.
There is ample evidence that Europe considers Ukraine part of itself (the 1994 partnership and cooperation agreement, EU’s joint strategy program on Ukraine adopted in Helsinki in December 1999, the September 2000 summit in Paris, and the 2001 Guteborg summit where Ukraine was invited to take part in the European conference).
Simultaneously, European countries see that Ukraine cannot by itself keep on course to reform. They do not understand things like a constantly fluctuating political line, constant reservations, quibbling, attempt to “go to Europe” not on one’s own but together with someone else, and the more so that this does not depend on Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine’s so-called multivector foreign policy is also hard to grasp elsewhere on the Continent.
The particulars of EU-Ukrainian cooperation were delineated by the Council for Ukrainian-EU Cooperation in Luxembourg in June 2001. It was also there that the cooperation guidelines were formulated: electricity, trade, justice, protection of the environment, and transport. Outwardly, Ukraine has made progress as seen by the establishment of the Cooperation Committee and six subcommittees, the Presidential Council for the Adaptation of Legislation to the EU Regulations, the Justice Ministry’s Interdepartmental Coordinating Council, creation of appropriate structures in the parliament, cabinet, and so on. In 1998 Ukraine’s president adopted the Strategy of Ukraine’s Integration into the European Union, and in 2000 he signed the Program of Ukraine’s Integration into EU. Finally, Ukraine’s Ministry of the Economy was reorganized as the Ministry of the Economy and Integration. Vice Premier Rohovy and Foreign Ministry State Secretary Chaly were placed in charge. All this allowed President Kuchma to say that Ukraine had arrived at the Yalta summit “fully equipped.” Yet domestic progress along the lines of integration is far less spectacular; specific economic and political results are not registered anywhere in the EU countries where “Ukraine’s presence in daily life” has by no means increased over the past months. In Ukraine also the European presence has not become any more noticeable to the man in the street.
Considering that Belgian Premier Guy Verhofstadt, currently presiding over EU, stressed time and again at the summit Ukraine’s “need to become more democratic” and that the Belgian delegation brought a draft joint statement dealing quite crossly with Ukraine, Europe’s requirements to Ukraine are noticeably mounting. At the same time, this predetermined the summit’s outcome: the strategy remains unchanged, but to carry it out Ukraine will have to take specific steps to become more Europeanized, solving market-development and freedom-of- expression problems, curbing corruption and organized crime. With this accomplished, “close cooperation” would become even “closer,” but — sometime in the future. Proceeding from the above requirements, Ukraine does not as yet meet the European standard. The leitmotif was present in what Guy Verhofstadt, Romano Prodi, and Javier Solana had to say at the summit. On the key problem of Ukrainian-EU relationships, President Kuchma said, “We proceed from the assumption that EU expansion must not stop at the Ukrainian border.” This overshadowed all useful aspects of cooperation (such as joint security and defense policy, cooperation in the power industry and transport, setting up a consortium to control the Odesa-Brody pipeline, working out a new mechanism controlling Ukraine’s gas transportation system, diversification of energy sources, developing the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea shelf, and safety standards for Ukrainian coal mines). All Mr. Verhofstadt could say was that, despite Ukraine’s being a “key country in ensuring stability in this region,” it will become EU’s “closest neighbor” only several years from now. Summing up the top level meeting, he pointed out four problems blocking Ukraine’s way to the European Union: (a) free and democratic elections to the next parliament; (b) freedom of the press; (c) the struggle against corruption, and (d) arms supplies to conflict areas across the world.
Of course, these traditional principles of European democracy have long been presented to Ukraine, but today’s special EU interest in democratic elections is hard to overlook. The point is not only that the union was, of course, frightened by the elections in Belarus, but also that there is chaos in Ukraine’s election campaign, threatening totally unexpected developments. On the other hand, the Big Four’s other problems are closely interrelated with the first (Europe is only too well aware that civilized elections are impossible without the freedom of expression and with such rampant corruption). Put together, these problems will determine Ukraine’s future and Europe is genuinely concerned about it. The guests in Yalta made it perfectly clear that, failing to solve these problems, Ukraine might well reduce to nothing all those “fundamental shifts and changes” so persistently highlighted by its leadership.
Still, the Yalta summit’s main result was correctly formulated as “Ukraine and EU have drawn closer.”
