The possible deal, while representing only a beginning phase of European integration for
Ukraine, is a watershed opportunity for the country to free itself once and for all
from the former Soviet yoke.
The deal should have been signed much earlier in President Viktor Yanukovych’s tenure, but
the high-profile prosecutions of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her ally
Yuriy Lutsenko provided a justification for already-reluctant members of the EU, led
primarily by Germany, to back away.
EU diplomats are now billing the Vilnius summit as a “last-chance,” and there are good reasons to believe that if the signing is derailed, the deal will
be off the table for a number of years, if not forever.
This would negate an
outstanding body of technical preparation work by Ukrainian ambassador to Brussels
Konstantin Yeliseyev and his team.
Ukraine’s foremost supporters inside the EU, Poland and Lithuania, cannot hold out
indefinitely against the heavyweight nations of Western Europe, who are strongly
disinclined against any suggestion of further EU enlargement.
Among the European elite, friends of the Ukrainian cause such as former Polish
President Alexander Kwasniewski and former head of the European Commission Romano
Prodi have been advocating tirelessly on Ukraine’s behalf, but can hardly be
expected to pull any more rabbits out of their hats.
No one understands the impasse in Ukraine-EU relations better than Russian president
Vladimir Putin, who threw down the gauntlet earlier this month at a meeting with
Yanukovych outside Moscow.
For historical reasons, the Russian leader has long been
eager to stop Ukraine’s drift westward and pull it back into the linguistic,
cultural and psychological construct of the so-called “Russkiy Mir” (Russian
Universe).
Putin called Ukraine’s possible entry into a new supra-national organization with
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan a question that is “political in essence,” tacitly
acknowledging that any economic benefits of a new Russian-Ukrainian union are only
of secondary concern for him.
This stance directly contradicts Yanukovych’s long-held position that cooperation
among former Soviet nations should be primarily economic. The president and other
Ukrainian government officials have frequently noted that the most important
economic advantages of post-Soviet re-integration could be achieved by a simple free
trade agreement with Russia, making a union with political characteristics
superfluous.
However, despite a relatively weak hand vis-a-vis Yanukovych, Putin holds at least
one ace: he knows that there is more popular support in Ukraine for a new union with
Russia than many observers in the West would prefer to admit.
Although nationwide
polls have indicated a slight preference among Ukrainians for European integration,
the numbers favor the customs union among retired voters and in heavily-populated
regions of southeastern Ukraine – the same demographics from which Yanukovych will
need overwhelming support to win reelection in 2015.
For this reason, it is dangerously naive for the West to assume that Ukraine is
already “in the bag”, and that the free trade and association signing can be withheld as a punishment
for Tymoshenko’s imprisonment.
As such logic goes, Yanukovych’s occasional hints that Ukraine could join the customs union if it is rejected by the EU are only a bluffing tactic.
However, this
view ignores the likelihood that, in the event of full customs union accession,
Putin would offer Yanukovych a sweetheart arrangement that protects the latter’s
personal and family interests.
If his drive to move closer to Europe fails, depriving him of a major success on
which to base a national reelection campaign, Yanukovych will have to show some sort
of alternative achievement to his voters in Russophone Ukraine in order to remain in
power.
And that is why Putin and his top political ally in Ukraine, Viktor
Medvedchuk, are reportedly expecting to Yanukovych to be on board with the new union
no later than the beginning of 2015.
Such an outcome would be tragic for current and future generations of Ukrainians, as
it would lead to the Belarusization, if not a wholesale breakup, of the country.
Regardless of which language they speak, Ukrainians are unanimous in their desire
for better governance and higher living standards. The historical records of the
past 20, 30, and 50 years all show clearly that it is the European Union, not a new
Soviet Union by another name, which has the best chance of delivering these
improvements to Ukraine over the long term.
This is less a matter of geopolitics
than of basic self-interest and economic common sense.
Unfortunately, with so much at stake, the debate over the signing of the free trade and association agreement has become too much about the Yanukovych regime, instead of being about a long-term
European strategy toward Ukraine as a whole.
The effects of the upcoming decision by
the EU will reverberate for decades after the current president’s departure.
Putin’s most powerful argument in favor of the Eurasian Union is not positive, but
negative: he asserts that Ukraine is unwelcome in Europe, and therefore Yanukovych
will have no choice but to turn eastward sooner or later.
“Sooner” almost happened on Dec. 18 of last year, when Yanukovych cancelled a
high-profile visit to Moscow just minutes before the scheduled departure, at which
he would likely have promised to join the Customs Union in exchange for cheaper
Russian natural gas prices.
Putin is apparently so confident of Yanukovych’s
eventual capitulation that he was unwilling improve the terms of his proposal to get
an immediate signature.
As former President Leonid Kuchma once famously stated, Ukraine is not Russia. But perhaps
more importantly in today’s context, Ukraine is also not Belarus or Kazakhstan – a
pair of incorrigibly authoritarian regimes where civil society and the media have
even less freedom than in Russia.
Taking this latter fact for granted would be a mistake that Europe – not to mention
tens of millions of Ukrainians – might end up regretting dearly down the road. The
EU should sign the free trade and association agreement in November and use ratification, a process which is
likely to be drawn out over a number of years, as the conditionality stick.
Better
safe than sorry.
Will Ritter is a freelance writer based in Kyiv.
