One of the first decrees of Yanukovych as president was the decree “unblocking the European integration process.” It was both a signal for the Council of Europe and for conservative Ukrainian bureaucrats who can’t understand priorities until they’re told clearly.
The first meeting in Brussels on Monday was with Herman van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, the authoritative forum of heads of states and governments of the European Union. The main news from their joint statement is that the next Ukraine-EU summit will take place on Nov. 22 in Brussels. By that time Ukraine and the European bodies have prepared an action plan to achieve a visa-free regime with the EU.
A key figure for Ukraine’s side of negotiations is Konstantin Yeliseyev, a 40-year-old appointee to the job of Ukraine’s representative at the EU. During Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency he was deputy foreign minister and Ukraine’s deputy representative in the EU. He is, perhaps, not alien to the Donetsk team of Yanukovych because he was born in the town of Krasnoarmeysk in Donetsk Oblast.
Ukraine’s ambassador in Belgium, 53-year-old Ihor Dolhov, who will also take part in the process, also has Donetsk connections, as he is married to the daughter of Oleksandr Lyashko, head of Soviet Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers for many years, whose Donetsk origins were supposed to dilute the dominant Dnipropetrovsk clan of Ukraine’s then leader Volodymyr Shcherbytsky.
Dolhov has worked in Finland and Germany, and he also managed the foreign policy department of Yushchenko’s secretariat. He was dismissed as Ukraine’s ambassador in Germany after the Bucharest NATO summit of 2008, where Ukraine’s request for a NATO road map was turned down. Yushchenko then called the result of the summit “a victory.”
Yanukovych’s next meeting was with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. History likes to make jokes, and does not like boring people. It seemed a little funny that Yanukovych is meeting Barroso effectively right after his negotiations with the President of China Hu Jintao.
The Chinese might have been amused by this coincidence in part because in Barroso’s youth, while studying law in Lisbon University, he was keen on Maoism and became a member of the student Marxist-Leninist Federation, the youth wing of the movement for reorganization of the proletarian party, a Maoist revolutionary organization.
However, this is all water under the bridge. These days much depends on Barroso in terms of relations with Ukraine. It’s impossible to meet with van Rompuy and not meet with Barroso, and vice versa.
Ukraine is trying to up the pressure: Its desire to economically become a part of Europe is not a whim and not a short-lived campaign. The meeting between Yanukovych and Barroso stretched 20 minutes beyond the schedule; it confirmed the future intention to conduct negotiations about an association agreement and creation of a free trade zone. And it seems that Yanukovych is prepared to come to Brussels as many times as is needed for successful negotiations.
It was clear from Barroso’s words that the EU considers the approval of five laws (on state purchases, on gas market, on National Bank of Ukraine, on the single regulator of utility tariffs and on information protection) to be a part of both the economic reform and manifestation of the political will to make changes.
The law on the gas market was mentioned three times by Barroso during the question and answer session. His answer to my question whether the EU is prepared to take part in the modernization of Ukraine’s gas transportation system was quite concrete: Yes, they are prepared and yes they want it. He said that in the next two weeks the EC is prepared to finance the technical and economic substantiation for modernization of Ukraine’s gas transportation system.
There were two other important subjects left out of the discussion: what Ukraine is prepared to waive when it opens its markets for the EU, and what markets the EU is prepared to open for Ukraine.
My impression, based on conversations with Ukrainian diplomats is that only the initial part of negotiations took place, and the most important parts are still ahead. I remember the difficult negotiations on phosphates and quotas for cod fishing that tiny Estonia had with its 1.5 million population, trying to protect its interests. This is indicative of the difficulties Ukraine might have with its large population and black earth, whose tiny crops stun western European agrarians. These are the kinds of tasks facing Yeliseev and Dolhov in Brussels, and many more people in Kyiv.
Viacheslav Pikhovshek is a former chief editor of news on 1+1 TV channel. He was also speech writer for former President Leonid Kuchma. He can reached at [email protected].
