The last weeks it is has been remarkably quiet in Western reporting about Ukraine. That may look positive, but it is not. First of all, the attacks by Russian-backed ‘rebels’ in occupied Donbas continue unabatedly and Ukrainian soldiers continue to die. Secondly, all indications are that the new government led by Volodymyr Groysman will not carry out the reforms necessary to put Ukraine irreversibly on the road to democratic rule-of-law and a social-market economy. Democracy and economic growth and the ensuing democratisation is not only in the interest of the Ukrainian people who demonstrated on Kiev’s Maidan-square with the risk of their lives. Greater stability in its important eastern neighbour is clearly also in the interest of the European Union. Therefore it is essential that Western media continue to follow Ukraine actively and critically.
Judged by the conditions under which they had to work, the first government after the EuroMaidan Revolution 2013/2014 has carried out impressive reforms. T
These were, however, mainly economic-financial in nature and did not alter the political-economic structure of the country. For that to happen dramatic reforms are required regarding the rule of law (public prosecution, courts), fighting corruption, curbing the power of the oligarchs and the organisation of elections. Without such reforms Ukraine will return its old straight-jacket of economic stagnation and self-enrichment by the corrupt political-economic elite.
Despite great pressure from Ukraine’s well-developed and militant civil society, the United States and the European Union virtually no progress has been achieved in these areas. A well-oiled coterie of oligarchs, public prosecutors, judges and civil-servants is blocking further reforms. Westerners can hardly believe how totally perverted the political-economic system in Ukraine is.
The combined wealth of the 50 biggest businessmen , usually illegally earned, represents some 80 percent of the economy. This also gives them a decisive voice in politics: they have their own political parties in parliament, buy parliamentarians of other parties and know to place ‘their’ people in key-positions in ministries.
In addition they also own the main tv stations and newspapers. Unlike in Western countries the Office of the Public Prosecutor in Ukraine is not the highest upholder of the law and guarantor of democratic rule-of-law. It is a Soviet-like 18, 000 men-strong instrument in the hands of the president to eliminate opponents and to enrich himself and his allies illegally.
The 8,000 Ukrainian judges do not adjudicate, but deliver verdicts on commission (auf Bestellung). The current election-laws enable oligarchs to buy places on partylists and to finance political parties in an uncontrolled manner.
As long as civil-servants have to do with their meagre salaries and without effective protection of their independence they remain easy targets for corruption. The power of the oligarchs can only be broken by targeted and thorough reforms in all these areas.
Committed Ukrainian reformers like the National Anti-Corruption Center of Ukraine, Transparency International and former investigative journalists Sergii Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem therefore ask the West to put rock-hard conditions for further assistance. They would not mind if Ukraine would be put under some sort of international trusteeship of democratic countries.
An effective lever for the West is the loan of $17.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund allocated in March 2015, of which only $6.7 billion has been disbursed so far. A next tranche of $1.7 billion will be released when the IMF will have agreed with Ukraïne’s additional reforms regarding monetary policy, pension-reform and privatisation of state companies.
An effective fight against corruption is formally also a condition that the IMF puts to the Ukrainian government, but unclear is if the Fund has put concrete conditions and what these consist of exactly. The $ 1,7 billion wil not only replenish the reserves of Ukraïne’s Central Bank, it will also unfreeze $ 4 billion of aid from the US, the EU and other donors. Some weeks ago the Groysman government managed to convince an IMF-mission that it would effectively carry through the requested reforms. The final decision will be taken by the IMF’s Governing Board in July however.
It is of the utmost importance that the Board put indeed concrete conditions for immediate and drastic reforms in the organisation of the Public Prosecutor, regarding the lustration of judges, in the fight against corruption measures and in the election-laws. That will make it also easier for the European Union, US and other donors to follow-up with similar demands. After the confirmation of the new Groysman government the EU ambassador in Kiev had given it hundred days to prove its reform-credentials. The Ukraïnian people and the West cannot afford, however, to wait that long.
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