Ukraine pursues closer ties with EU
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Thursday, 06 October 2005 |
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune
BERLIN Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov of Ukraine is to arrive Thursday in Brussels to try to persuade the European Union that the Orange Revolution that toppled the old regime in December lives on.
Appointed last week after President Viktor Yushchenko put an end to months of bickering and power struggles inside the government by dismissing Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, Yekhanurov must now convince the EU that Ukraine is still pursuing the path of reform. In return, Ukraine wants reassurances that it can establish closer political and economic ties with the EU, even the prospect of eventual membership.?
In particular, Yekhanurov wants the EU to support Ukraine's application to join the World Trade Organization, which Ukrainian officials said could help push forward economic reforms. Yekhanurov, however, has said these talks should not jeopardize Ukraine's ties with Russia in what seems a shift in policy from his predecessor, Timoshenko, who adopted a strongly anti-Russian stance when she was prime minister.?
Closer to home, Ukraine's other neighbors have invested much hope in a successful outcome of the Orange Revolution and are looking at the recent developments in Kiev with both fear and fascination. One of their big concerns is that Ukraine will become so absorbed by internal strife that it will put regional affairs on hold until after parliamentary elections in March. An even bigger concern is that Yushchenk'sreforms could fail, leaving Ukraine unable to make the full transition from the old Soviet system to democracy.
Igor Burakovsky, director of the Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting in Kiev, said that for now the Ukrainian government would be absorbed in internal affairs. "It is understandable," he said. "But there is something bigger at stake for the government: its ability to modernize the political system."?
Burakovsky said the Orange Revolution was welcomed by the political elites in Moldova, Georgia and other countries of the region "because they were hoping for a post-Soviet space."?
"For these countries and for Ukraine, the issue is clear," he said. "Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of them have had some economic modernization but no political modernization. This is the legacy of the post-Soviet systems. That is why the success or failure of the Orange Revolution matters so much."?
For several of these countries, Ukraine offered immense hope because of its size, its potential political clout in the region and the possibility that it could deal with the legacy of the Soviet era.?
When he was sworn in as president in January, Yushchenko moved quickly, at least on the foreign policy front. He started forging close ties with President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, who in 2003 led the forces that ousted the former Communist regime led by Eduard Shevardnadze.?
Yushchenko also started talks with Moldova in order to solve a long-running dispute in Transdniestria, where a Russia-backed leadership is trying to break away from Moldova. The talks are continuing, but there has been no major breakthrough.
Ukraine has also supported the democratic opposition in Belarus, where President Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994 and who has muzzled the media and tried to quash any independent opposition, will run again for president next March.?
Georgy Meladze, a member of the Kmara opposition movement that led the Rose Revolution in Georgia, said events in Ukraine affect Georgia, Belarus and Moldova.?
"We are linked by the Committee for Democratic Change, which is about tackling the legacy of the Soviet system, for instance the entrenched state structures of power and security and the old communist nomenklatura," said Meladze. "It is that system that has made the transition to democracy so difficult. That is why the follow-up to the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan matter. These countries are unique because they have Soviet-type systems."?
Uladzimir Kobets, leader of ZUBR, the independent opposition movement in Belarus, said that if Ukraine could successfully deal with the legacy of the Soviet system, it would have immense positive repercussions for the region.
"The Baltic States were able to make the transition from communism to democracy more easily because they were not fully Sovietized," Kobets said.?
Poles, particularly President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who had personally supported the Orange Revolution, argued that the recent crisis in Ukraine was about trying to undo the legacy of the old Soviet regime.?
Rafal Sadowski, a Ukrainian expert at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, said: "Ukraine is going through an unclear period. The process of democracy in these countries takes a long time because of the Soviet legacy. The situation does not help the drive for democracy in the region."?
Ukraine's neighbors said the recent crisis showed that democracy was beginning to take root. Kobets said it was fascinating to see how "the changes were done peacefully and through the democratic process."
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