On Nov. 7, European envoys – Pat Cox, the former president of the European Parliament, and Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former Polish president -- arrived with smiles to the Ukrainian parliament.
Their
mission: to help end the deadlock over a proposed law that would allow the
imprisoned ex-Prime Minister YuliaTymoshenkoto go abroad for medical treatment.
But on Nov.
8, upon leaving the Verkhovna Rada after two days of tiring talks with speaker
Volodymyr Rybak and the heads of parliament factions, Cox and Kwasniweski
didn’t look so pleased.
“It’s
complicated, everything is complicated,” Kwasniewski told journalists.
The
European leaders made clear that the release of Tymoshenko, who is now in the
third year of a seven-year prison term in a case seen by the West as a political
vendetta, remains a precondition for Ukraine signing a landmark free trade and association
deal with the European Unionat the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius,
Lithuania on Nov. 28-29.But with the summit just weeks away, there still isno
visible solution in sight.
The leaders
of three opposition factions also appeared gloomy as they announced the latest
news to their party members in the parliament hall.
“None of
our proposals that we offered today or yesterday were supported by (the pro-presidential)
Party of Regions,” Arseniy Yatseniuk said. “They did not receive instructions
from President (Viktor) Yanukovych to vote for the draft law, as the scenario
of breaking the association is now implemented.”
Despite
what Yanukovych said on Oct. 18 — that he would sign any law that allows Tymoshenko
to go for foreign medical treatment — his political party did not support any
bill put forth and did not propose its own draft law.
Oleksandr Yefremov,
head of the Regions Party faction,said that his party electorateis worried over
the aggravation of relations with Russia.“This is the main issue for European
Union, but not for our political force,” Yefremov said, adding that it should
be a law written by a special working group that is voted on.
Opposition
members initially insisted on voting on the law proposed by independent
lawmaker Anzhelika Lobunska, which was supported by both the Cox-Kwasniewski
mission and Tymoshenko. This lawprescribes that a convict may be allowed followinga
court decision to go for medical treatment abroad if he or she has spent
atleast one year confined to a hospital without improvement. But on Nov. 8,Yatseniuk
claimed they were ready to support any law for the sake of association.
Heeding the
demands of the Party of Regions, parliament created on Nov. 8 a working group
that will include the members of all political parties in proportion to the
number of seats each of them holds in parliament.
Yefremov
said that this group should be given about a week to develop a law.It will need
to work faster, however, to meet a deadline given by Europe.
On their
last visit to Ukraine on Oct. 22, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and
Sweden’s Carl Bildt said that the EU ministers will make a final decision on
whether to sign an association agreement with Ukraine duringthe Council of
Ministersmeeting onNov. 18. They said they will be guided by the
Cox-Kwasniewski mission report scheduled for Nov. 14. “The clock is ticking and
time is running out,” Bildt then said.
Opposition
lawmaker Hryhoriy Nemyria, who heads the international block of Tymoshenko’s
party, clamed this deadline couldn’t be postponed anymore.
“It is impossible to postpone making a decision on this issue both in
terms of political and procedure point. And the Ukrainian representatives know this,”
he told the Kyiv Post. He added that Europe needs not only the laws on
Tymoshenko’s release, but also her actual release ahead of the summit in
Vilnius.
Before
closing parliament for the week, lawmakers passed in their first readings laws
on prosecution and on the changes to election code, which were also included in
a list of demands that the EU made to Ukraine for signing the association and
free trade deals.
Yatseniuk
said that the opposition has collected over 150 signatures to hold an
unscheduled meeting of parliament on Nov. 12, hoping to pass then the two bills
in second readings, as well as a law allowing for Tymoshenko’s treatment abroad.
But parliament speaker Volodymyr Rybak is yet to announce any parliament
sessions for next week.
Independent
lawmaker Petro Posroshenko, whose confectionery company Roshen
had its products banned by Russia in late July, allegedly over his support of
Ukraine’s move towards the EU, said he was still optimistic about Ukraine’s chances
of signing the association agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit. “I
believe that common sense wins,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be
reached at [email protected].
