aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] UKRAINE NOT WELCOME IN "EUROPE"

[Taras Kuzio <t.kuzio@utoronto.ca>]

RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 138, Part II, 25 July 2002



END NOTE

UKRAINE'S ASPIRATIONS TO 'RE-JOIN EUROPE' STILL NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY

By Taras Kuzio

    Ukraine and the European Union held a summit in Copenhagen on
4 July followed five days later by a visit by NATO Secretary-General
Lord George Robertson to Kyiv on the fifth anniversary of the
NATO-Ukraine charter. The outcome of both events reflects the
skepticism with which Ukraine's strategic foreign policy goal of
"returning to Europe" through integration into trans-Atlantic and
European structures is still met in Brussels.
    In his annual address to parliament in May, President Leonid
Kuchma outlined a timetable for the creation of a free-trade area
with the EU by 2004, a customs union in 2005-07, signing an associate
agreement in 2007, and fulfilling all of the criteria laid out by the
EU in order to join the union by 2011. On the eve of the Copenhagen
summit, the Ukrainian parliament issued an appeal approved by 257 out
of 450 deputies asking the summit to upgrade the 1994 Partnership and
Cooperation Agreement (PCA), which was ratified and put into effect
only in 1998, "to a qualitatively new level of development" that
would lead to EU membership. But the joint EU-Ukraine summit
statement reaffirmed that only the PCA would be the basis "for
developing our relations further" (PCAs do not recognize aspirant
membership status and were signed only with CIS members, while the EU
signed association agreements with other postcommunist states). The
EU also refused at the Copenhagen summit to grant Ukraine the status
of a "market economy."
    Why has Ukraine again failed to convince Europe of its right
to join the EU? Denmark, which took over the EU presidency in July,
is the only EU member to have closed down its Ukrainian Embassy,
itself a reflection of its lack of interest in that country. For the
EU it is highly convenient that Ukraine's domestic policies simply
reinforce the deeply held view in Brussels that Ukraine is not part
of "Europe." Bertel Haarder, Danish Minister for Refugees,
Immigration, and Integration, laughed off Kuchma's plan to gradually
move into the folds of the EU by 2011 as reminiscent of Soviet-era
announcements that communism was on the verge of being achieved, but
never actually was. "Instead of statements and expectations for clear
signals, the Ukrainian authorities should switch to fulfilling
arrangements and fulfilling their declarations," Haarder advised.
    A major obstacle to "returning to Europe" is the deeply
ingrained Soviet political culture that eastern Ukrainian leaders,
such as Kuchma and his oligarchic allies, are seemingly incapable of
breaking with. The executive and its oligarchic allies fail to grasp
that their unwillingness to resolve the murder of journalists such as
Heorhiy Gongadze undercuts their desire to switch from a PCA to an
association agreement as the stepping stone to future EU membership.
Only nine days after the Copenhagen summit, Our Ukraine member and
anti-Kuchma campaigner Oleksandr Zhyr was removed, through a flagrant
misuse of the legal system, from contesting repeat elections in
Dnipropetrovsk he was set to win. His removal ensured a victory for
the pro-Kuchma For a United Ukraine candidate.
    The visit by NATO Secretary-General Robertson to Ukraine was
more productive than that of the EU summit because the EU has a
closed-door while NATO has an open-door policy on membership. Whereas
the EU rules out moving from a PCA to an association agreement, NATO
is willing to upgrade Ukraine from a charter to a Membership Action
plan (MAP), which must be fulfilled for membership. But Ukraine is
still at least 10 years away from NATO membership.
    For the moment, NATO still doubts Kyiv's willingness to adopt
the necessary all-round nonmilitary reforms that make up four of out
five MAP sections. Robertson warned that Kyiv would have to display
"a sustained commitment to the implementation of political, economic,
and defense reforms" and uphold human rights, the rule of law, and
freedom of the media.
    NATO also remains concerned that Soviet-era ties between CIS
intelligence services could compromise shared intelligence between
Ukraine and NATO. Ukraine's annual expenditure of $590 million on the
military is abysmal and would require a six- to sevenfold increase.
Hungary, with armed forces only one-seventh the size of Ukraine's,
spends twice as much annually on the military ($1.09 billion), while
Poland, with a population only slightly less than Ukraine's, spends
$3.58 billion annually. Ukraine spends only $2,900 per serviceman per
year, compared to $9,700 by Romania, one of the poorest NATO
aspirants, or Poland's $18,000.
    The newspaper "Zerkalo nedeli/Dzerkalo tyzhnya" pointed to a
lack of enthusiasm in NATO for Ukraine's membership and a Polish
newspaper reported that only one-third of NATO members support
Ukraine's membership. NATO is also tempering its enthusiasm so as not
to damage its new strategic relationship with Russia.
    The 23 May decision by Ukraine's National Security and
Defense Council (NSDC) to seek NATO membership was transformed into a
presidential decree during Robertson's visit. Nevertheless, NATO,
like the EU, believes Kuchma issues declarations that go unfulfilled.
The government has not, for example, made any attempt to mobilize
public support for NATO membership or to create a consolidated
position on NATO among the Ukrainian leadership, which presidential
administration head and oligarchic Social Democratic Party-united
leader Viktor Medvedchuk opposes. A July poll by the Ukrainian Center
for Economic and Political Studies found that the same proportion (32
percent) supported and opposed NATO membership, with 22 percent of
Ukrainians undecided.
    The EU still continues to rule out Ukraine's membership and
it would be only forced to change this position if someone it has
faith in to implement Ukraine's "Europeanization," such as former
Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, was elected president in 2004. If,
on the other hand, Kuchma succeeds in engineering the election of a
like-minded successor, Ukraine's aspirations for EU membership will
be again thwarted for five to 10 years. NATO's secretary-general
believes that Ukraine's membership also remains "hypothetical" and
"long-term," and that "membership is not on the agenda right now."
Nevertheless, at least NATO has not fully ruled out Ukraine's
membership, unlike the EU.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a resident fellow at the Centre for Russian and
East European studies, University of Toronto.