Ten reasons to be optimistic for Ukraine in 2012

The words 'clutching' and 'straws' spring to mind, but here are some attempts at being optimistic for the coming year.

1. The Russian awakening

If you're trying to imitate the Putinist system in Ukraine, 2011 has not been a good year. The Arab spring has already challenged the convenient myth that the desire for democracy is simply a curious fetish of the western world. Putin's recent interviews have verged on incoherency, with their conflicting arguments and bizarre plot threads (Hilary Clinton has around 100 000 cheques to put in the post, and little chance that the money will arrive before the end of the New Year shopping rush. In any case, if all these people really are being paid by America, why pick on Clinton rather than Obama?). So with its slogan 'За честные выборы' ('for free elections'-a sensible call to rally around rather than trying to find a unified voice on all the various complex issues) the Russian awakening could get awkward for anyone wishing to push through a preferred outcome for the 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine. If the March presidential election in Russia gets messy, then the Ukrainian ones might all the more so. After all, for those Ukrainians who think 'if they're doing it in Russia, it must be right for Ukraine' there will surely be no choice but to follow the latest trend in Moscow.

2. The not completely unfree media

On a related point, the regression of the media in Ukraine has not yet reached that of Russia. Even though every major tv channel is owned by interests close to the Party of Regions, Ukrainian tv news still covers protests and incidents, such as the recent deaths of two Chernobyl cleanup veterans in Donetsk. It does not childishly ignore such items as Russian tv tends to do, choosing not to cover the story of the thousands massing not far from its offices in Moscow. The furore from the attempt to hush up the famous Yanukovych wreath episode (always worth re-watching) was a learning exercise for the authorities here. So Ukrainian media is more like a 'Murdoch on steroids' than the rigid tool of an authoritarian regime, and that's something at least.

3. DCFTA in a critical condition, but not dead yet

Time will tell whether Ukraine has successfully played the neo-Titoist east-west balancing game between Russia and the west or whether the country's number is finally up. The situation in Belarus, where Russia is now helping itself to the country's gas pipeline network and strategic assets, is a great warning here. The EU has, in the end, put on the table quite a reasonable free trade deal which Ukraine could do well out of, if the country can get the better of its debilitating parochialism. I agree with the view that's been expressed elsewhere that Tymoshenko shouldn't necessarily be the EU's red line (we should see what Strasbourg has to say about it first) but the 2012 parliamentary elections must be free and fair, and the general 'Donbasization' of Ukraine's business environment needs to subside. It's not yet too late to put Ukraine back on the right path and for everyone to benefit, and for various reasons 2012 may just prompt a rethink in high places. Here's hoping anyway.

4. Ukraine can't isolate itself completely in 2012

2011 was certainly a year of increasing isolation for Ukraine. Foreign businesses have been pushed out or decided to leave, business visa rates raised for foreigners, and the EU told to back off and stay out of Ukraine's affairs. Russia will also turn nasty if Ukraine's gas pipelines are not handed over, leaving Ukraine with perhaps nowhere to turn. Against this background, we can expect it to get even harder for Ukrainian nationals to get those precious visas to Europe and America. That makes Euro 2012 a potential foil to this trend of isolationism, with the attention from foreign media and visit of many thousands of those cursed foreigners, hopefully breaking down prejudices on both sides.

What would be interesting is if Ukraine somehow managed to top Group D and and then win the quarter final, setting up a semi-final in Warsaw, with the diplomatic embarrassment of thousands of Ukrainians desperately queueing up in the hope of getting their Schengen visas for the match just 4 days later. That would bring their plight of being behind the 21st century's Berlin Wall unprecedented international attention. Yet I fear the boys in yellow will not be up to that task on the field. It is however difficult to see Euro 2012 having much of a political impact on the direction of the country, any more than the Olympics in China or Eurovision in Azerbaijan! There is a much greater risk that the 'feel good' factor will be used by the Party of Regions to try and coast through the elections later in the year.

5. Strasbourg will help us to clarify the Tymoshenko situation

The European Court of Human Rights and the word 'fast' do not normally go together with its enormous backlog of cases, but we have been told that Tymoshenko's case (or cases?) will be somehow fast-tracked by Strasbourg. Some have asked whether, with a good conscience, Tymoshenko ought to be able to barge her way to the front of the queue at the expense of the cases of others but if (just if) there is a serious problem with rule of law in Ukraine, that affects the 45 million or so people that still live there. An overturning of her conviction could stop the juggernaut of what appear to be politically-motivated cases. I would be sceptical however as to whether she will be freed by any verdict of theirs. Governments elsewhere in Europe (the UK for example) would like the ECHR's rulings to be considered more as advisory than binding on the countries concerned, and that will be music to the ears of Russia and co for whom petitions to Strasbourg are the last hope of many of their abused citizens. What doesn't make sense to me is that Tymoshenko's political career has paradoxically been boosted by the whole thing, if the recent poll ratings for her party are anything to go by. As I've written before, Tymoshenko is no Aung San Suu Kyi, but the authorities may end up turning her into one.

6. The rise of UDAR

Vitali Klitschko is a busy man. He's yet to hang up his gloves and is due to defend his title once again in Germany in the new year, but for many of us it's his political career that is being watched closely. Klitschko brings a number of positives to the table. He's personally very popular in Ukraine. He's Russian-speaking, so embracing, by some estimates, a good two thirds of the country, linguistically-speaking. He understands the west, having been based in Germany for many years. He is almost the only public figure in Ukrainian politics who hasn't worked his way up by corruption, bootlicking, contract killings and goodness knows what. And he's a pragmatist-the Russian Black Sea fleet can stay in Sevastopol, but not at the expense of Ukrainian democracy. That ability to break down mental obstacles is essential for Ukraine to progress. He needs to overcome a great deal of public scepticism to become a real challenger, but much will depend, as he should know as a sportsman, on who he puts in his team. The marketing campaign that lead Yatseniuk to crash and burn should be a lesson there. But if the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger can make it as a serious politician, there's no reason why Klitschko can't (and he can hardly be worse than some of the dross we end up with).

7. Southern vector

A counterweight to Ukraine's east-west tussle may be for the country to look south. In 2011 Ukraine and Israel began a visa free regime and Ukraine is now discussing a similar deal with Turkey. Turkey in particular is becoming a major player in the business environment here, in areas such as retail and telecommunications. Alongside Polish goods, Turkish goods are also now ubiquitous in Ukraine's shops. Turkey has some important similarities to Ukraine (both are large countries whose accession ambitions worry the old core countries of the EU) and it makes sense for both to develop deeper trade relations. The south may be just what Ukraine needs to avoid being captive to east or west.

8. Ukraine increases its cultural profile

This observation may be right or wrong, but I see Ukraine beginning to enjoy a greater flourishing of its artistic culture. It was great to see recently the Daily Mail (I'm not a reader) cover the work of Oleg Shuplyak, and the growing Kiev arts complex Mistetskiy Arsenal featured on Euronews. A country like Ukraine needs these outlets of cultural expression to find its modern day identity, and I see it starting to happen.

9. Ukraine doesn't forget

One of the great achievements of recent years has been the growing recognition of the Holodomor, a large scale human catastrophe that has been ignored in the past at least as much as others such as the Armenian Genocide. This year those of all political colours gracefully commemorated the occasion and it would now be politically unacceptable for those in power not to do so. The argument about whether it was specifically a genocide against the Ukrainian people will continue, but society has reached an encouraging consensus on the issue (I would argue that it was only part of the genocide, events such as the so-called 'Розстріляного відродження', perhaps translatable as the 'aborted renaissance' of Ukrainian culture, completing the picture).

10. (Some) Improved infrastructure

Again Euro 2012-related, there will definitely be some appreciable improvements in many things for a country that generally takes only baby steps. New airport terminals won't completely make up for the hassle of getting in and out of Ukraine but they will be very welcome. Kiev will see some improvements, such as as to the previous squalid medieval state of Andryivsky Uzviz (my opinion anyway-it was in a terrible state). New (South!) Korean-built trains will be quite a culture shock on Ukraine's railways (and are a much more sensible solution than the extravagantly expensive Sapsan trains Russia bought from the Germans, most likely as a pat on the back for letting them build Nord Stream). Six Ukrainian football teams now play in Premiership-standard stadiums rather than the crumbling concrete bowls they used to play in. Alas the construction of hundreds of miles of motorway that Yushchenko foolishly promised UEFA never materialised. The hot water will still get cut off every other week and most Ukrainians will see next to zero difference to their lives from these prestige projects, but they are a step in the right direction all the same.

The challenge for Ukraine is to put in place a system that really utilizes these improvements. Ukraine needs tourist information offices in its cities and an open skies agreement with the EU to allow more budget airlines in. What I fear however is Ukraine closing ranks after the championship. The authorities have already stated their intention to bring back the restrictions on foreign nationals changing currency that caused such havoc this autumn. It wouldn't surprise me if the visa regime for foreigners traveling to Ukraine was quietly reinstated later in the year. The types of business that benefit from tourism are generally small businesses, and seeing as the authorities have shown themselves to be anti-small business, such development may not be a priority for the government. The disconnect between expensive advertising campaigns and the arduous experience of actually coming here may continue to exist for a long time to come.

After two years of almost constant bad news, I really hope 2012 will be a good year. God bless Ukraine. Happy New Year!

День свободи!

Freedom Day?

This was Maidan (Independence Square) on the 7th anniversary of the start of the Orange Revolution. Nice to see so many police wanting to come and join in the commemoration...

Endgame: Is the Ukrainian government's Euro-circus coming to an end?

Whilst the EU dropped the ball during Yushchenko's Presidency, is the present government just trying to play Brussels? If so, the results are increasingly farcical.

The Ukrainian President's recent trip to Cuba, against the background of the cancellation of an invitation from Brussels, could almost be taken as a marker of the country's fast track route to pariah status. Now even the Party of Regions' 'friends' in the Socialist grouping of the European Parliament are distancing themselves from the regime by backing a tough-sounding resolution on Ukraine due to be delivered in Strasbourg tomorrow. It's starting to look as if the European path was never Yanukovych's objective, or at least that they were never prepared to make any sacrifices in terms of their hold on power to achieve it. In conversations with government figures the mention of the EU-Ukraine free trade deal seems to get more of a philosophical sigh than a reaction of even qualified enthusiasm. It's also starting to look as if the EU is losing patience with what looks ever more like a circus that has little to do with the democratic gains the country made under the previous presidential administration. The EU must now be very wary of signing itself into an agreement with a regime which looks so eager to wreck its European credentials. Why should the EU allow itself to be used as a bargaining chip for Ukrainian oligarchs to haggle with Russia for cheaper gas for their cash cow steel and chemicals industries? Ukraine looks like it's becoming a feudalist state at breakneck speed.

There is no doubt that the EU's decision not to step in during the early years of Yushchenko's presidency with a clear path to the EU accession process will go down as a pivotal point in the region's history. We would undoubtedly be in a different position today had they done so. It was deemed necessary in the 80's to rescue Spain and Portugal from backsliding after their democratic revolutions and to rescue Greece from the Soviet bloc (despite the clear present evidence of their unreadiness for European integration, it was probably still the right decision). It was also the right decision to grant the former Yugoslav countries a distant but clear future direction. Understanding in society of European geopolitics is low at the best of times (just look at the UK!), and in somewhere like Ukraine particularly low. The Ukrainian public needed a clear and unambiguous signal that their eventual future lies with Europe, but in the end, the climate of cynicism in 2010 was enough to open the door to the Party of Regions who, it certainly seems, were only playing by democratic rules while it suited them. Just as with the Mediterranean and Balkan examples, as experts claim, there may be an enormous cost to the west from not taking in Ukraine, not to mention Moldova etc. from having a 'European Mexico' on the EU's doorstep, a disfunctional source of criminality and immigration.

But whilst the EU was to blame 5 years ago, the isolationism of 2011 is all of Ukraine's own making. The direction that Ukraine is going in might be better suited to joining the African Union than the European Union, and a glance at many of the indicators on corruption, business environment, rule of law and democracy simply confirm this.

Shades of Blue: Is there a European alternative to the Brussels project?

The post is from October, but the issue looks increasingly relevant.

As the EU struggles with its own well-documented problems, the UK has tied itself in knots by choosing today to debate and vote on the idea of a referendum on EU membership which is unlikely to happen after all three major parties put a three-line whip on the issue to vote down the proposal, which was triggered by the same pesky government e-petition website that threatened to throw open the debate on capital punishment.

British Eurosceptics are not a homogeneous group. There are the rabid 'bent banana' Eurosceptics who ignore the geographical reality of where our island sits, and for whom there is no distinction between EU migrant workers and illegal immigrants from elsewhere in the world. There are still some with delusions about the UK's potential global role, or farcical ideas that Americans or Australians would be 'delighted' to open up to preferential economic agreements with the UK. There is the frequently-coined argument that when Britain voted in the 1970's it voted to join an economic union, not a political one, but a look at the founding treaties of the EU makes clear that it was all along a politically-coloured project. Then there are quite reasonable arguments made about the democratic deficit in the EU's institutions. There is also the technical constitutional argument, which relatively few mention but which holds some water, about the incompatibility of the EU's system with the British system, that the British constitutional principle that 'no parliament can bind its successor' is broken by the signing of European treaties.

The main argument being given against the EU referendum seems to be 'now is not the time', which means that the issue in the long term is not likely to go away. Many people will continue to support Britain's withdrawal, saying things like 'look at Norway'. A Norwegian local politician I met a couple of years back however lamented her country's unwillingness to join the EU, saying that Norway has to implement 95% of EU legislation, with a 0% say about what goes into it. Very few who truly understand the issues think that Britain can simply have no form of economic integration with the EU. If Britain, for example, was to leave the EU, but desire to continue to participate in the single market, it would have to accept something similar to the EEA deal. Switzerland, on the other hand, has a series of bilateral opt-ins and opt-outs of EU policies, but on many issues it is captive to the regime that surrounds it.

Britain, Norway, and Switzerland are not alone in feeling that their deals with Brussels are in some way unsatisfactory. Across Europe, on the eastern frontier, we have Turkey, the candidate country which may never join, which so far has only a customs agreement with the EU which is of limited value. Then there is Ukraine, which, whilst doing its best to shoot itself in the foot, has not yet formally abandoned its deep free trade area talks with the EU. Georgia and Moldova are likely to agree similar free trade deals with Europe, and the DCFTA model may be what Turkey eventually has to settle for, if it doesn't decide that a sub-optimal relationship with Europe does not outweigh the benefits of a multi-vector trade policy, given its geographical position and robust pre-crisis economic growth. In Ukraine's case, the regression on democracy and rule of law may mean that it never fulfills the political criteria for a relationship with Europe. Belarus may already be beyond the point of no return having already joined the precursor to Putin's 'Eurasian Union'.

During European debates in the UK, going back to the 1990's, the phrase 'two-speed Europe' frequently came up, implying that France, Germany, Benelux, Spain, Italy etc. could push ahead with closer integration whilst, for example, Britain and the Nordic countries could take a slower approach. Only in one sense has this clearly manifested itself, but notably, in the EU states that did not choose to adopt the Euro. One might also sense that one or two newer EU members, longer term, might not desire the closest level of integration with other member states. Would Poland, for example, ever want to end up in political union with Germany?

So, if Britain is twitchy, Norway disadvantaged, Turkey rejected and Ukraine self-excluded, not to mention Switzerland and Iceland in Europe but not the EU, should these countries think about getting together in some kind of trade organisation, which could collectively lobby Brussels? If the EU had a rival club of 8-10 countries with which it had to agree single market conditions, might those countries together have real influence? In the longer term, such a consortium might be able to get Israel or Russia/Belarus/Kazakhstan on board and then you are talking about a rival group with tremendous clout. After all, if all these countries are either unhappy being under the EU's thumb, or given the cold shoulder by it, doesn't it make sense to look at other options? A looser organisation might also be able to more effectively involve Europe's southern neighbourhood.

There would be nothing to stop the group of non-EU members here (to list, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Turkey, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro) to sit down and discuss common interests and possible future co-operation. This is admittedly just an idea and hasn't been fully thought through, but perhaps not all roads in Europe lead to Brussels (?).

2012 in Ukraine-walking the democratic tightrope?

In defining Ukraine's future, the Euro 2012 football championship looks like being a sideshow compared to the parliamentary elections which, if they go the President's way, may clear the political field for years to come. At the heart of this is the coming change to Ukraine's electoral system.

The proposal is for a mixed system, with half the deputies elected by party list and the other half by constituency mandate. Just like in Germany then, so that's all fine, or so the argument will go, rather like when people explain away post-Soviet autocracies as 'like the presidential system in France', conveniently failing to mention the liberal media environment, the French fondness for and tolerance of protests, strikes and direct action and, not least, democratic nuances such as the genuine Presidential Primaries currently taking place in the French Socialist Party. The assertions are short and snappy, but the counter-arguments require explanation.

The desire is, it must be believed, for a consolidated power vertical rivalling anything else in the post-Soviet space, but Yanukovych is walking a tightrope to a much greater extent than his counterparts in Russia or Belarus. Russia, because it does not aspire to any form of western integration (WTO membership aside). Russia's elections are carefully engineered through restrictions on registration of opposition candidates, high thresholds for entering parliament etc. In Belarus they just make it up, despite it being fairly certain in the past that Lukashenka could have won fair and square. Perhaps his currently plummeting popularity there suggests that, from his point of view, he made the right choice.

The difference with Ukraine is that its semi-democratic credentials are based on the sequence of free and fair elections, two parliamentary and one presidential, which took place under Yushchenko's much-despised stewarship. That means that Ukraine now has more to lose from western partners. We know they can do better. Therefore the maintaining of the Party of Regions' grip on power requires an approach certainly more subtle than in Belarus, and perhaps more ingenious than that in Russia. Yanukovych will never be able to pull off the United Russia trick, which relies on Putin's personal popularity.

The new law does not look like it will be the one to restore Ukraine's 'free' status that Freedom House stripped it of last year. To get into the nitty-gritty, the new law would take us back more or less to the system that was used in 1998 and 2002. The electoral constituencies will be formed just 90 days ahead of the elections. Were this knowledge, heaven forbid, to be available to the powers that be in advance of that date, they would be able to steal a march on the opposition in terms of strategic planning. The election commissions would be formed of the parties in power, so the Party of Regions and the Communists. Party lists will be able to be changed even on election day itself. Appeals will be impossible in practice because the deadline will have expired while the documents are still in the post. And so the list goes on...

But it may not be these technical aspects that lead to a democratic malfunction in 2012, but rather two important cultural aspects. Firstly, that whether or not the President is trying to steer Ukraine down the European path, much of his support base has clearly taken his coming to power as a return to the 'good old days'. That means back to the days when ballot boxes are loaded into trucks or thrown in rivers. I'm not sure Ukraine's leadership will be able to prevent widespread abuses even if it wished to, because the prevailing culture is now the pervasively undemocratic post-Soviet one. There's no real understanding in those circles of the value and importance of respecting the rules.

The second cultural aspect rests with the electorate. It has been found that, particularly amongst the young, there is a despondency about the whole exercise and a willingness to sell their vote for 100-200 dollars. It has also been noted by researchers that trust in Ukraine's judiciary has plummeted over the last year and a half. There is little hope of successfully challenging any violations. Having said that, interviews with the public have thrown up some quite reasonable suggestions-that deputies who do not attend parliament should be fired or not paid, that each voter should have a stamp confirming that they've already voted put in their internal passport (the Sovietesque Ukrainian national identity document) to prevent multiple-voting and the banning of deputies elected on lists from crossing the house. But in the end, whilst both the general population and the elites have plenty to say on what should be amended in the new law, there is clearly a fundamental disconnect between any of these people and the decision-makers, who have probably already decided what they want.

The elections will almost certainly take place in the restricted media climate that has come to exist in recent times. And in any case, following the elections it's difficult to say what the point will have been, given the deterioration of procedural standards in the Verkhovna Rada, the 'piano-players' voting for absent deputies, use of physical violence, blocking of the rostrum by the opposition etc. And presumably if the result is not quite the desired one, the Constitutional Court will allow a few 'tushki' to cross the house and make up the numbers.

Events may anyhow overtake things. Relations with the west are deteriorating rapidly and, in the worst case scenario, the incentives for democratic good behaviour may have all but evaporated by then. In any case, the EU is, for all its faults, a community of shared values, and if these values are not in evidence in Ukraine, one could say, what is there to discuss?

The author attended Civic Discussion of Parliamentary Election Law of Ukraine on 19th October 2011 http://kyivweekly.com.ua/accent/news/2011/10/13/144855.html

Is this what it takes to get Europe's attention back on the east?

The sight of the forlorn Tymoshenko on newspaper front pages across the world has arguably given Ukraine the most exposure that it's had since the Orange Revolution. At EU level, it was telling that a europarl news item on a European Parliament plenary session which would have read 'MEPs to debate Middle East uprisings with Catherine Ashton' now read 'MEPs to debate Middle East uprisings and sentencing of Ukrainian opposition leader with Catherine Ashton'. Is this what it takes to get the EU's attention on to the problems on the eastern half of its own continent, rather than on Europe's external periphery. The willingness to prioritise emerging democracy in the southern neighbourhood over its survival in the eastern neighbourhood might have proceeded undeterred were it not for this very serious wake-up call.

Even more than Europe's diplomatic shortcomings, the Ukrainian President now seems to have come up with a spectacular inverted version of the famed 'yes man' Kuchma diplomatic policy, having managed to disenfranchise not only the Unites States and European Union, but Russia as well. Indeed, that the conviction centres on a gas deal countersigned by Russia's all-powerful de facto President is a prickly point, and it's very possible that the Russian Prime Minister considers it a personal slight (Putin has apparently said that he doesn't like Yanukovych, add to the well known fact that he 'personally detests' the Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenka-politics in this part of the world is always personal).

The world's newspapers have perhaps got the wrong idea. Tymoshenko is no Aung San Suu Kyi, even if the Ukrainian judiciary risks turning her into one in the eyes of many. It has been more soberly pointed out in some quarters that the 2009 gas deal did contain some quite serious violations. But these violations were made at a time of extraordinary pressure on the Prime Minister. Both Russia and EU states seem to be rather forgetting their roles in what transpired that January as a result of Russia shutting off the gas taps. They are also largely based on Soviet era laws, as is the precedent for the curious practice of a personal fine levied for a loss to the state budget. After all, nobody has claimed that Tymoshenko has personally helped herself to funds from the gas deal. What even happened to the Kyoto money we were talking about when she was first charged?

It's also in a sense not the point. Tymoshenko's party is the only genuine opposition left in Ukraine. Commentator Taras Kuzio claims that every other party feeds dierctly or indirectly into the Party of Regions power structure. Like Khodorkovsky in Russia, dismissed by many as 'no angel', the most obvious casualty is that of political pluralism in the state. It's doubtful that Tymoshenko has really been put away for technical reasons. Amongst various theories, one suggestion was simply that the President is sick of her endless ex-con jibes.

The news that further charges are going to be leveled against Tymoshenko is hardly going to help curry favour abroad. The new charges, of direct personal enrichment, are perhaps more to the point, but I would steer clear of that one, at risk of creating a precedent for looking into the ill-gotten gains of one's predecessor's personal enrichment following their fall from power.

So now we see a diplomatic squeeze on Ukraine from outside, but at the same time a domestic squeeze on Ukraine's population. New currency exchange laws and bans on loans in foreign currency are a case in point. Indeed, the new currency exchange rules have lead to currency exchange booths in central Kiev turning away foreign customers altogether. With Kiev's newly-renovated Olympysky Stadium set to host a friendly between Ukraine and Germany in November, one has to wonder how any Germany fans brave enough to make the trip are going to get on. Most likely, we'll see a facade similar to the one Russia put on when it hosted the 2008 Champions' League final, where the visa requirement was temporarily dropped to prevent the embarrassment of 70000 Brits queueing for Russian visas, and the notorious Russian police were suddenly immaculately-behaved, for 48 hours or so. It will be a great shame if Euro 2012 next summer turns out to be a similar cosmetic exercise rather than a lever for change and a chance for the country to adopt European norms in many areas. It has been suggested that the new currency rules are in fact a data-collecting exercise on the country's citizens which will soon be complete, for some unknown purpose.

On the subject of sport, an interesting aspect of the Tymoshenko detention is that it leaves a vacancy for opposition figurehead that may be filled by one of Ukraine's most popular public figures, boxer Vitali Klitschko, who has been boosting his media profile of late. Although he did not previously succeed in two attempts for the Kiev mayoral office, he has the distinct advantage that, unlike almost all the alternative figures in Ukrainian politics, Klitschko did not get to his present position through corruption. His time living in Germany also gives him a different perspective on how the country should be run. There are big question marks about how politically able he is, and whether he can overcome a fair amount of public scepticism about his ambitions, but if he surrounded himself with the right people he would certainly do no worse than the current incumbent, and might be the one to finally knock some heads together!

EU-Ukraine trade deal a long haul but not a dead end

Ratification of the EU-Ukraine trade deal may drag on a while, but it beats the dead end of the customs union.

Ukrainian politicians put their foreign counterparts to shame when it comes to empty or over-optimistic promises, but there appears to be something in the current administration's assessment that the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area' DCFTA could be thrashed out by the end of the year, with EU sources admitting that real progress is being made. So goods will be sailing through a customs free Polish-Ukrainian border by the time of the Euro 2012 football championships? Whoa there, not so fast!

Even if Ukraine makes good on its pledge to satisfy all the terms by the end of this year, the agreement will still have to go through a lengthy ratification process, through the Verkhovna Rada, the European Parliament and finally, the potentially sticky wicket, the European Council of the member states themselves. That could mean the process being spun out into next year, possibly ending up on the back burner for a time whilst the elections to the European Parliament are being fought. If the wheels do keep moving, an optimistic forecast is that the agreement might come into force in 2015. With the various 10 year moratoriums on certain issues, the full extent of the agreement could then finally be realised by 2025.

So, why would Ukraine wait such a long time for the EU when the customs union with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus is already ready and waiting? Well, current events in Belarus give a good pointer there. The shortages of foreign currency that have fueled the crisis there owe a lot to the start of the customs union earlier this year. Belarus had to increase import tariffs on cars from the west as part of the agreement and, rather than wait for Ladas from friendly Russia to flood the Belarusian market, Belarusians rushed to get hold of cars from the west before the tariff went up, and that meant the need for foreign currency, which quickly turned into the chaos we see today with speculators from Ukraine and Russia flooding over the border to make a killing selling currency at vastly inflated rates. Enter now Russia itself with offers to buy up Belarus's key assets to dig them out of trouble, and it could be goodbye to pipelines and refineries, and a major handicap in the Titoist east-west balancing game at which Lukashenka has excelled himself in the past. And if Belarus wants to change the tariffs that started this whole mess? Well, between themselves and Kazakhstan they wouldn't be able to muster a controlling vote, as 54% of votes apparently belong to Russia, and incidentally, a lot of the revenue from the tariffs won't even go to Belarus, but to Russia. Rather than Ukraine looking to join, surely Belarus and Kazakhstan should be running for the exit door as fast as they can!

For Ukraine, there is plenty of real work to do, and not only on DCFTA. June 2011 was Yanukovych's proclaimed date for ticking the various boxes in the move towards visa free travel to the Schengen area for Ukrainians. Yet we are now told September 2011. The chief sticking point is the required introduction of biometric passports for Ukrainians. As so often in Ukraine, parochial self-interest threatens the greater good, in the form of a private company represented in the Verkhovna Rada which apparently produces the country's passports, and which is no doubt holding out for a greed-fueled windfall from the process. And we can expect such instances to remain the norm for the foreseeable future. Add to this the inability of Ukraine to see that a mere €150m of EU money is properly accounted for, and you would forgive those who remain sceptical.

Until the Ukrainians have to put pen to paper on the trade deal, we may see, as has been suggested in some quarters, a last minute rush to get hold of the country's assets via more of the country's ubiquitous dodgy privatisations, after which there is an idea that people, at least in theory, will start playing by the rules. Once signed, the emphasis will then be on compliance, and that could turn out to be the biggest hurdle of all. If in 2025 things have been ticking along well, and the EU has moved on and stabilised from its present traumas, they may finally be willing to talk membership. If however a ratified free trade deal is not complied with, then Ukraine's European aspirations truly will founder on the rocks, with only itself to blame.

Moscow Patriarch photoshops his way to popularity in Ukraine

More clutching at straws by the Russians

I wrote recently about the stumbling lack of progress Russia has had trying to sell it's customs union in Ukraine, against the opportunity to enter a deep free trade deal with the EU instead. I also mentioned the Moscow Patriarch's obsessive visits to Ukraine since his installation, far more frequent than those of his predecessor. Well it now seems the obsessiveness has reached new heights.

I was astounded to hear recently that, following his 9th May visit to Kharkiv, Patriarch Kirill's own website carried a photo of massed crowds in the city's Freedom Square which appeared to have been doctored. Compare the mass of worshipers in the first photo with the rather more subdued reception suggested by the second photo.

Unsurprisingly, the photo has since been removed from the official page. To my sensibilities, such an action by a church website would heap shame on any reputable christian organisation, but it perhaps tells us a lot about the real forces at work in the Moscow Patriarchate (?), and the importance of presentation in the current information war.

The fact is that most eastern orthodox Ukrainians take little interest in these squabbles, and many attend both Moscow and Kiev Patriarchate churches without giving it much thought. The real Kharkiv picture suggests relative indifference to the Patriarch's visit, even in the Russian-speaking heartlands. Perhaps Ukraine is suffering from Kirill-fatigue?

An unlikely redemption? European free trade and resisting the Russians

The history books might be kinder to Yanukovych and Yushchenko if the EU-Ukraine free trade deal is signed

After 13 months of almost continuous bad news on Ukraine’s political landscape, the apparently positive developments in negotiations for the EU-Ukraine DCFTA are welcome, and the struggle as Russia instead seeks to wrestle Ukraine away into its ‘customs union’ is fascinating. Many commentators are looking at this as a pivotal moment in Ukraine’s future path of development. Russia offers a ‘better the devil you know’ option against the ‘what if’ possibility of maybe, just maybe, joining the European family. It appears Mr Putin left empty handed after coming to Kiev this month to state the opportunities and threats for Ukraine of joining or not joining the customs union. In declaring that Ukraine wishes to be a participant in a '3+1' format it appears Yanukovych is using an old EU tactic of setting out principles that are deliberately vague, and which could be interpreted later in a variety of ways.

There is a history of Ukraine's politicians attempting to gain 'Euro cred', going back to Kuchma's grand designs on EU membership, which were of course backed up by little substance in the way of reform. Yushchenko most energetically wrapped himself in the blue and gold, and did take some concrete steps in taking Ukraine into both the WTO the Bologna education process (the latter has since begun to be unraveled by the current administration) but failed to break the back of other necessary reforms (and gained no political capital from not doing so, if his plummeting popularity was anything to go by). Their efforts to make headway with Europe are generally judged as being a failure, and Yanukovych was subsequently elected on the pragmatic pro-Russian ticket, yet, as some predicted, his election has definitely concentrated the minds of some people in Brussels.

Although many member states are Russia-friendly, for the EU as a whole a stronger and wider Russian influence would not be altogether welcome. And Ukraine, for all its faults, still represents an opportunity to bring another 45 million people (at last count) into the single market, and serves as a possible lever for bringing in another 150 million from the former Soviet world in due time. Yanukovych was left, ironically as a legacy of the orange years, with the opportunity to conclude the free trade agreement with the EU. A whole-hearted 'Europeanisation of the oligarchs' has not taken place, but in the overall scheme of things the DCFTA has a lot to offer them as metals and chemicals exporters, and the alternative of the customs union might turn out to have risks of its own.

It’s difficult to look on the customs union as anything other than a thinly veiled neo-imperialist project, a sort of preliminary stage in attempting to re-establish the USSR/Russian Empire (Patriarch Kirill’s obsessive visits to Ukraine are difficult to explain except as part of that same project). Hence Mr Putin’s eagerness to make sure this one doesn’t get away. Russia has yet to have a Suez moment, after which it would downsize its ambitions and start to concentrate on the serious business of becoming a normal European country. Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova etc. will probably have to live with this post-imperial delusionism form their eastern neighbour for some time to come.

Russia has predictably waved the carrot of cheap gas. But like the biblical Esau selling his inheritance for a single meal, selling out the entire future of Ukraine for cheap gas would be hopelessly myopic. Current studies even suggest that Eastern Ukraine might be sitting on significant reserves of shale gas, so the answer to heavy industry’s gas dependence might be right under their noses. Citing the legacy of Soviet industrial infrastructure, as Putin did during his visit, is seriously clutching at straws. Most sensible people from the Donbas admit that the system has been dismantled too far now to be reassembled. For instance, Russia now mines coal quite happily in opencast mines, so why would they go back to buying it from Ukraine? Overall, the potential benefits of the customs union do not look overwhelming, and joining could be a terrible sellout for very little return.

As a word of advice to our Russian friends, it’s the neo-imperialist undertones (overtones?) that might ultimately scare Ukraine away. After all, do the Ukrainian oligarchs really want to be reigned in as the Russian ones were? Would Ukraine be amalgamated out of existence as Tatarstan is about to be? Does anyone in Ukraine really want that? It’s about time we stopped taking the ramblings of a few nutters in Sevastopol as indicative of the predominantly Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine. The real picture is far more nuanced. On a trip to the very first village outside any major Russian-speaking city one will soon hear Ukrainian, even if it is of the hybrid ‘surzhik’ variety. Whilst there is very little overt hostility to Russia amongst the vast majority of Ukrainians (the western regions excepted), Russians overstate the feelings of Russianness in Ukraine.

Another factor is that it’s actually rather more difficult for Russia to play hard ball with this government than it was with the previous one. Yanukovych’s administration has given so many genuine concessions to Russia. The Black Sea Fleet is free to remain for a generation, Russian language is back in the ascendancy, Russia-friendly textbooks are going into the schools etc. etc. Yushchenko was easily painted as a rabid Russophobe enemy and a hand therefore poised on the gas tap, but these new people in Kiev are supposed to be their friends, even now aping many features of the Putinist approach, imitation being after all the sincerest form of flattery. Andrew Wilson has argued that Yanukovych's pro-Russian stance might paradoxically actually make it easier for Ukraine to somehow manoeuvre itself into the European sphere. Can Russia really fight the Yanukovych government having seen during the long orange years what the alternative might be?

However, the EU road looks long and often far from promising. There are some apparently persuasive arguments for abandoning negotiations with the EU, particularly in the current climate. Too many big EU states are now obstructing enlargement, the EU is ridden with all kinds of crises and going against the will of Russia could be a major headache. One can also understand Ukrainian pessimism towards Europe. Look at Turkey’s pursuit of EU membership which dates back to 1987 when it was deferred to ‘more favourable times’ which more than 20 years later show no signs of arriving (the European Commission clearly refrained from offering Ukraine the prospect of even eventual membership to avoid being put in the same position again). However, if the prize of membership has eluded the Turks thus far, they have still developed positively on economic, democratic and, to at least some extent, on human rights indicators. Ukraine could do with at least the same Europeanising force that Turkey has gotten from long term political engagement with Brussels. The journey is as important as the destination.

If the DCFTA is really the road to Europe, it could be a very long road indeed, but it beats the dead end of the customs union. Yet Brussels could be doing more. Putting off visa liberalisation for Ukraine because of the North African problem, as has been rumoured recently, doesn’t really follow sound logic. What’s the link between Libyans fleeing a civil war and Ukrainians trying to visit France, Spain or Hungary for their holidays? They might even spend money there, at a time when you would think EU states could do with the cash (?). More importantly, if they like what they see, they might bring some of those ideas home. We all know that some Ukrainians overstay, but there is no reason why automatic visas could not be granted for those who have already shown from previous trips that they can adhere to the rules. For now, Europe sends out to thousands of Ukrainians every year a message of rejection and inferiority, so no wonder some have already given up.

But finally, if this isn’t a flight of fancy, just supposing Ukraine does enter a common free trade area with the EU, and supposing over time it does well out of it, and edges incrementally closer and closer to real and meaningful European integration. The historical legacies of Ukraine’s soap opera politicians might one day be seen in a completely different light. The passage of Ukraine into first the WTO under Yushchenko, and then the DCFTA under Yanukovych might paint them as unlikely founding fathers of a European future for Ukraine. After that who knows? Visa free travel? EU membership? The Euro? Imagine that.

If Ukraine was run like Shakhtar (and vice versa)

The benefits to Ukraine’s ruling classes of meritocracy ought to be clear...

For all the bad publicity the country gets, Shakhtar Donetsk bucks the trend. They lifted the UEFA Cup in 2009 and their 6-2 aggregate demolition of Roma in the previous round was astonishing. They’re currently sitting pretty 12 points ahead of arch rivals Dynamo at the top of the Ukrainian league. Of course such success didn’t grow out of the ground. Obviously Shakhtar are rather well-resourced by their billionaire owner. But whilst it’s tempting to dwell on the rights or wrongs of where this money might have come from, there’s another rather interesting point to be made, which bucks the trend in today’s Ukraine. Whilst Shakhtar have been flying, the country has meanwhile been relegated from democracy’s ‘Premier League’ (the ‘free country’ status previously afforded it by Freedom House), tumbled down press freedom ratings and virtually languishes in the amateur league of the Global Competitiveness Index. So what is it that Shakhtar does differently?

A look at the team sheet tells us the roots of this success. The Shakhtar team that started both games against Roma contained only three Ukrainians. Of the six goals they scored, five were scored by Brazilians and one by a Czech. Now I’m not in any way out to belittle Ukrainian football. Ukraine has a fine historical pedigree in the game, going back to Dynamo Kiev’s European successes in the 1980s, or the Dynamo team that got so close to making the Champions’ League final in 1999. On one occasion the entire USSR football team was selected from Dynamo Kiev, and Ukrainian teams and players were heavyweights in Soviet times. They play a technical, passing game that has its good points. Nonetheless, Ukraine is 33rd in the (albeit slightly dodgy) FIFA World Rankings, so if you want to mix it with the best, you need to bring in the best, and that’s what Shakhtar have done. Whether it will be enough against Barcelona tonight is another question entirely, but there’s no doubt that the likes of Luiz Adriano and Jádson are top quality. Brazil produces the world’s best footballers, so it makes sense to recruit the best.

Sport is probably the ultimate meritocracy, and it’s laudable that Shakhtar have realised that in football you need to bring in the best people to do the job. But given the links between that very football club and the current ruling class, it’s difficult to understand why the same policy would not be best employed in some of the more important aspects of running the country. On the economy, why not bring in experts with a track record of successful economic reform, such as from Slovakia or Poland. On rule of law, why not bring in experts from countries which, for example, rank high on the WJP Rule of Law Index. The Germans could give pointers on how to run a de-politicized Constitutional Court or a successful National Bank. Foreign experts could be used to much greater effect in the preparations for Euro 2012. And so it goes on. The alternative is ineffective institutions run by poorly-qualified cronies ill-suited to their roles. The rampant cronyism of Ukrainian society means ignoring the people who might be best for the job in favour of the well-connected. That leads in the end to chronically ineffective management, such as was seen in the Scottish police, when the promotion of too many freemasons to leading positions led to officers needing to be brought up from England to solve major crimes.

To best illustrate the point, imagine that Shakhtar was run in the way that Ukraine is. Shakhtar is a Ukrainian team and should have Ukrainian players. As captain we’ll bring back our captain from 10 years ago when we were we were bottom of the league and judged to be a poor side. He was already in his 50s then and, at 63 looks well past it, but he’s a mate of the head coach so gets the nod. In midfield we’ll bring back another old hand. He was dropped by the previous coach but acts as an intermediary, contributing nothing to the team, but demanding half of the team’s wages for just standing in the middle. Up front we could put a mate of the Coach’s son. He looks decidedly overweight, has only ever played pub football and doesn’t feel up to attending the press conference to tell us how he’s going to carve open the Barça defence. The team is very likely going to bomb in every match from now on, but never mind, the club website and programme notes will still accentuate the positive and tell us that we shouldn’t expect better.

Ukraine to be fast-tracked to EU membership?

A news release that’s today been brought to my attention.

Ukraine is set to be offered EU membership by the end of the decade, according to a leaked memo from Berlaymont. The change of heart happened after high-ranking Brussels officials said that ‘when they looked into their eyes, they believed in the sincerity of the country’s reforms’. The EU is apparently so impressed by Ukraine’s efforts in cleaning up corruption, the rule of law, and bringing stability that they are ready to offer Kiev an unprecedented promise of fast-track membership. Progress on the free trade agreement with the EU has stormed ahead and the Eastern European ‘tiger economy’ shows no signs of slowing. “We simply cannot ignore the progress they have made”, said an unnamed Brussels source. “We could do with some of that stability here in Brussels”, he added. It is thought that the allure of Ukraine’s fields of wheat, steel mills and horilka was just too good for the supranational body to turn down.

There had been fears that the EU was suffering from ‘enlargement fatigue’ with too many members, but the EU plans to solve this by expelling Greece from the union. That country also faces expulsion from NATO if it does not change its name, as US authorities have apparently deemed the name too similar to that of the 1971 musical Grease, and fear a loss of revenue from intellectual property rights.

The accession process will be a streamlined version of the one that former communist countries have previously undergone. The famous acquis communautaire will be replaced by non-binding promises of reform and traditional accession negotiations will be replaced by demands and banging fists on the table. As part of the process, negotiators will occasionally be allowed to travel to Brussels if they’ve behaved themselves and don’t drink too many Mort Subites on nights out while they’re over there. They will travel visa free but will be given Mastercards to cover any unnecessary extravagances. In preparation for Ukraine’s membership, Members of the European Parliament will be issued with gym membership and running shoes as, as one MEP admitted, running round pressing the voting buttons in a chamber of that size will be ‘quite a task’. They will also expand the Commission’s Gentlemen’s Club as they won’t be bringing any women with them, apart from the standard concubines. Facilities for the elderly will also be expanded, including zimmer frames for senior Ukrainian politicians.

There is some disappointment that Ukraine will not be joining the union of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and the other Chinese frontier provinces, but provision of warm blankets and cups of hot cocoa for the winter will form part of the EU’s pre-accession aid package and should do the trick on those chilly winter nights when the gas is switched off. Further funding will also be made available for a construction site and associated partially-completed facilities for the European Fuss Ball Championships due to be held sometime in the near future but we’ve still got a couple of years or so left, haven’t we? “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to host the tournament”, said the head of the organising committee with a smile.

Upon accession, Ukrainians will be one step ahead of their EU brethren, having left school one year earlier. It has been agreed that school textbooks will be EU-friendly, omitting painful chapters such as the Cold War, the EU constitution and the accession of Greece. After all, there’s no point in people making themselves upset for nothing. In addition to Ukrainian, Bollocks will be made a second state language as apparently a majority of the ruling classes in the country actually talk Bollocks.

Europe’s neighbourhood policy: who is my neighbour?

French plans to rob the east to pay the south may not have the desired result. And what is Slovenia playing at?

Slovenia is playing an odd game. Lending its support to the more obvious voices of France, Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Malta, these six are calling for a substantial increase in financial support to the EU’s southern neighbourhood, or more precisely, the North African countries that are currently grabbing the news headlines. Perhaps the Slovenes are reminding us all of their presence on the Mediterranean periphery, in case we all start siding with Croatia in their border dispute. Members of Slovenia’s government must have the shortest memories of all. Understandably most Slovenes did not share their fellow countryman Tito’s love of Yugoslavia, and got out early, leaving the others to attempt to settle their differences whilst racing into the leading pack for the 2004 EU enlargement and membership of the Euro. Clearly communism and the legacy of its deficiencies is a distant memory, as Slovenia joins calls to 'redirect' the EU’s support away from those in the east who were not so fortunate.

It is the word ‘redirect’ that should set alarm bells ringing here. The French-led proposal seems to suggest giving up on the six countries of the EU’s eastern neighbourhood, of which three have shown pro-democracy leanings amongst their populations in just the last decade, pulling financial assistance from those countries and transferring it to the Maghreb, Egypt etc. Certainly the need to support new democracies in the Arab world is extremely important. It could very soon turn on its head the entire way in which the Islamic world is viewed and build bridges with the west through a recognition that a desire for individual rights and a voice in how countries are governed is not a unique quirk of European DNA. Most optimistically, it could undermine Islamist extremism.

Many of the stories of discontent in Egypt or Tunisia could be straight out of post-Soviet Europe: rampant corruption, jobs given on the basis of family ties, clans and cronyism, and emigration due to lack of prospects. Citizens in both are told that their desire for a voice threatens ‘stability’, which normally means beating or imprisoning opposition, muting, oppressing and sometimes killing journalists, deemed preferable to ‘chaos’, which includes such evils as political competition and freedom of information and media of the like that was seen in Ukraine over the past five years. The citizens of that country can now weigh up whether they are really better off under ‘stability’ than under ‘chaos’ now that they appear to be back under the former. Upcoming elections in Tunisia and Egypt will form the basis of comparison for citizens of those countries. The Ukraine experience gives, amongst other lessons, that citizens’ expectations must be tempered with realism, whilst not giving in to debilitating pessimism.

So, a ‘Marshall Plan’ for the Mediterranean, as Italy has suggested, is not per se a bad idea (come to that a Marshall Plan for the world) but let’s not forget that aid offered by the original Marshall Plan never met all its intended recipients. Certainly those waking up to Soviet occupation in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius never saw any, and neither those in an identically same boat in Brest, Lviv and Chişinău. The difference is that the first three are, in some sense, enjoying a latter-day payout via EU structural funds, whereas the other three cities are arguably in worse shape than they were in 1939 as cities of Poland and Romania. Europe is already not nearly as engaged with its east as it should be.

Marshall Plans are also hugely expensive-just ask the Americans about their more recent experiences with Iraq and Afghanistan, which have eaten tens of billions of dollars of US taxpayers’ money. And it may not necessarily give you the results you want. As with Europe, perhaps American money pouring into those countries has been at the expense of taking better care of things closer to home. If we want to look at a border dealing with the very same issues as the eastern Schengen border, the US-Mexico border is a good place to look. EU-style structural funds for Central America is a pretty alien concept there, but the results of not taking such a move are there for all to see. Mexico shares Ukraine’s Freedom House status of ‘partly free’, as well as its love of organised crime and a penchant for emigration. With a consolidation of that situation to the EU’s east, the problems associated with it are here to stay.

In addition, it's too early to write off EU support in the east as a failure. Support for Moldova at this very point in time is crucial. The country, for many years one of the poorest in Europe, is beginning to turn a corner. Foreign Chambers of Commerce in Ukraine are currently advising investors to go to Moldova rather than taking chances leaving their FDI at the mercy of Ukraine’s rapidly re-assertive crony capitalists. Efforts to consolidate Moldova’s own revolution are hanging by a thread. The Alliance for European Integration has managed to form a government, and the move towards a parliamentary system is a welcome challenge to the status quo of stale presidentialism in the post-Soviet space. There is the potential to solve the Transnistrian crisis with the soft power of reform and increased prosperity elsewhere in the country. But they need our help. €25 a head will be a small price to pay if it transforms the dynamic of the eastern neighbourhood. Europe has a real opportunity for partial redemption for their dismal failure to engage Ukraine during the brief post-Orange Revolution window of opportunity.

Clearly Russia would be delighted to see Europe's attentions shift southwards. To adopt the most cynical stance, one might say that transferring attention away from the post-Soviet space would give France a clearer run for selling more Mistral battleships etc. and help to de facto formalise the ‘Schengen curtain’ separating free Europe from Russia’s claimed sphere of influence, and allowing the big countries of Europe to continue to do business bilaterally, unimpeded by restrictive EU foreign policies. Nord Stream is now under construction, and the benefits of not upsetting the Russians are apparently there for all to see. Currently the even half-hearted efforts at engaging these countries are the only thing piercing the border. The ultimate cynic would say that the move to the south is an opportunity to kill this issue for the foreseeable future.

Clearly supporting the south is essential, but abandoning the east would be hugely risky. However, writing cheques to unscrupulous leaders and officials is also very risky. The EU has learnt this only too well with Bulgaria. Possible compensation for the shifting of funds away from the east might be to replace financial incentives with infinitely more valuable alternatives. Visa-free travel to the EU for the Eastern Neighbourhood, which would probably be a non-starter for our North African neighbours, would get much of the work underway in the east, from the bottom up rather than the top down.