Ukraine’s parliament failed on Nov. 21 to pass any law that would have allowed jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to go for medical treatment abroad, dealing a serious blow to the country’s chances of signing a landmark deal with the European Union later this month.
European
leaders called the release of Tymoshenko a major condition for Ukraine to sign an association and free trade agreement with the EU at the Eastern Partnership
Summit in Vilnius on Nov. 28-29, which many see as a historic move from Russia
towards the West.
An icon of
Orange Revolution, Tymoshenko was imprisoned for abuse of office in 2011 in a
case widely seen by the West as an attempt by the country’s President Viktor
Yanukovych to oust his political arch-rival. The idea of sending her to Germany emerged over a year ago and was
promoted by European mediators as a compromise solution allowing Tymoshenko
to receive freedom and Yanukovych to save face.
Opposition lawmakers on Nov. 22 shouted “Shame!”after parliament did not find enough votes to pass any of six
laws for Tymoshenko’s treatment.
“All the
masks are ripped off,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, head of Tymoshenko’s Batkyvschyna party told parliament. “Neither the president nor Party of Regions are going to
sign association with the European Union.”
Yanukovych
promised on Oct. 18 that he will sign the law on Tymoshenko treatment after the
parliament adopts it. But since then his party has disapproved all the laws on this
proposed by other factions refused to submit its own bill.
“The Party of
Regions wants to sign the association agreement and the president said this,” Borys Kolesnikov, an influential lawmaker of the Party of Regions and former minister, told the Kyiv
Post in parliament. “But this has nothing to do with Tymoshenko.”
Tymoshenko
called on the opposition on Nov. 21 to support any law deciding on her case “for which
Yanukovych finds courage and conscience.”
Parliament
postponed the crucial law for Friday, Nov. 22. But after government announced
later on that day that it suspended the country’s preparations for the EU
association, there’s almost no hope that a law on Tymoshenko’s release can ever be
passed.
Text by Oksana Grytsenko
