In a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the nation’s political opposition leaders, European Union Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fuele said that he stressed the importance of swift action to solve the nation’s crisis.
“My message was that the violence is not acceptable and
politicians must think about their actions or non-actions,” Fuele said.
Fuele’s three-day visit to Kyiv this week was the third one in
just more than two weeks.
He said it followed up on the meeting of the EU Council of
Ministers on Feb. 10, where for the first time the ministers said that should
Ukraine choose to sign an association agreement with the EU, this would not be
the final destination of the relationship – a statement that stops just short
of am EU membership prospective for Ukraine.
Ukraine has been locked in a political crisis since November,
when the government walked away from signing a political and trade deal with
the EU, which brought thousands of people to the streets to protest.
Yanukovych and his loyal Party of Regions have been stalling any
real moves towards a political compromise with the opposition that would end
the crisis that has in its third month.
This week, the Party of Regions and their Communist allies in parliament
have sabotaged the opposition’s attempts to call an emergency session in parliament
to vote on the 2004 version of the constitution that would strip the president
of some of his powers, and allow the parliament to appoint a prime minister and
government, as well as discuss a new version of an amnesty law for the protesters.
Representatives of the pro-presidential majority have said none of the laws are
likely to be ready for a vote until the next scheduled session on Feb. 18.
Fuele said that the president is also stalling the appointment
of the government’s representative to the investigative panel of the Council of
Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland for nearly two weeks. The panel, which is designed to probe the
deadly clashes in Kyiv between the police and protesters on Jan. 19-22,
already has appointees from the opposition and the council.
Fuele said he told the president it was important to proceed
with the investigation “as soon as possible.”
Yanukovych met with Jagland in Sochi on Feb. 7, where he
reiterated the government’s commitment to continue “constructive talks with the
opposition to search for ways out of the political crisis within the legal
framework,” his press service said. It was not clear if they discussed the
potential work of the investigative panel.
Yanukovych is expected to suggest a candidate for prime
minister next week, a job that has been vacant since Prime Minister Mykola
Azarov quit on Jan. 28. His First Deputy Serhiy Arbuzov, who is believed to be
a part of the president’s inner circle, has been running the government in
caretaker capacity. Members of the opposition fear that the president will
offer Arbuzov’s candidacy for prime minister, a move that would escalate the
simmering street conflict further.
But Fuele said he has attempted to explain to the president that
any major decisions for the country would “need to be inclusive, not only
authorities and the opposition, but also the civil society and the business
community.”
He also said that he stressed the importance of
confidence-building measures.
“In all my meetings, particularly in meetings with authorities,
I stressed how important are confidence and trust as the main precondition of
the political process,” he said. “It cannot be achieved on Maidan while
arrests, intimidation, harassment continues from people in uniforms, or
civilians in sporting clothes.”
Fuele said he also discussed potential financial assistance from the EU with the three opposition leaders, and that he would “brief the
president” about it later on Feb. 13. He said the aid will be conditional on
cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, as well as “reform, reform,
reform.”
Kyiv Post deputy chief editor Katya
Gorchinskaya can be reached at katya.gorchinskaya@gmail.com
