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.

Conditionality in reverse? Is democracy in the EU becoming poisoned by Europe's realpolitiking with the east?

Media freedom concerns in Hungary and tacit legitimisation of authoritarian governments to the EU's east may not be unconnected.

Two European countries, both in the former Eastern bloc, both considered democratic free countries in recent years, and both following the election of powerful new governments, have come under fire in recent months under accusations of deteriorating media freedoms. One, Hungary, has been on the EU's official radar of accession since the early 90's and joined the club in 2004. The other, Ukraine, for various reasons has been and continues to be dealt with strictly at arms length by Brussels. A direct comparison obviously presents many inconsistencies. Hungary's new government has an overwhelming democratic mandate from a strong showing at the ballot box, whilst the strength of Ukraine's new rulers comes in no small part from a somewhat creative approach to constitutionalism.

The powers that be in Ukraine moved first, bringing in self-censorship in the dominant television media owned by east-leaning pro-government interests, and depriving two independent news channels of broadcasting rights. As a result the free media environment has seriously deteriorated and news broadcasts have certainly become neutered where news detrimental to the authorities is concerned. But next, consider the current actions of the Hungarian government of Viktor Orbán, whose new media law would have encompassed tv, print media and even the blogosphere, an area which has come under attack in authoritarian regimes such as Azerbaijan. Orbán's robust approach, promising a "new system" of power, could almost have been directly inspired by the Viktor sitting in his eastern neighbour's Presidential Palace. The new media law has been watered down somewhat from that originally proposed, but something has clearly emboldened the Hungarian Prime Minister to think beyond most other European leaders.

Other broad similarities in approach are in evidence. Orbán's stuffing of various posts with Fidesz cronies is but a milder echo of the shameless cronyism that can be evidenced in Ukraine. The pressure to oust András Simor from his post at the Hungarian National Bank seems like hard work compared to the recent appointment of a friend of one of Yanukovych's sons of unknown pedigree as the head of the National Bank of Ukraine. Playing with the constitutional court is another common theme. In Ukraine it has become known as the 'konstitustska', a play on the word 'prostitutska' for its pliancy to the authorities, whilst in Hungary the jurisdiction of the court is being shrunk away from certain key areas. Of course, it's simplistic and probably grossly insulting to Hungarians to say that Hungary is like Ukraine, but there is certainly a general theme that can be picked up here. After all, the EU is still dealing with Ukraine as a 'fellow democracy'.

Another event this year has also suggested that the virtual democracy of the east is infecting the established democracy of the west. The extraordinary playing out on the European stage of Ukraine's internal political struggles via the groupings of the European Parliament has, in the author's view, seriously compromised the European Parliament. The European Peoples Party's established association with Yulia Tymoshenko's party was audaciously challenged by the Party of Regions' infiltration of the European Socialist Group, delaying a European Parliament Resolution on Ukraine which might have sent a strong message prior to local elections which were widely considered a democratic relapse compared to the three free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections which followed the Orange Revolution. Romania's Adrian Severin was on hand to defend the Ukrainian authorities, but the recognition of an oligarch-financed party as a kindred spirit of socialist parties in Europe looked flimsy to say the least.

The EU has been understandably careful in its handling of the Yanukovych administration in Ukraine, which seems to currently occupy a kind of ambiguous limbo between democratic legitimacy and authoritarianism (the soon to be released Freedom House report for 2010 will probably clear up any doubts). However, in not wishing to push away Russia and the six Eastern Partnership countries, the EU (and/or its member states) are now in the business of not only engaging but deal-making with countries which, to a greater or lesser extent, have dubious credentials, particularly compared to the Copenhagen criteria that future members in the Western Balkans and Asia Minor are at least officially encouraged to aspire to. The deals are potentially serious tie-ups. In Ukraine's case the DCFTA, membership of the European Energy Community and possibly visa free travel to the EU. All apart from Belarus continue to be welcome in the Council of Europe.

The danger here is that well-intentioned realpolitik begins to rub off on the EU itself. If Ukraine's rulers can bend democracy to suit their aims and still be endorsed as legitimate, why not Hungary's too? We shouldn't forget that none of the rulers of the CEE countries grew up in free democracies (the occasional returning diaspora member excepted) and the temptation to follow the Ukrainian example of simply considering the art of the possible may be very acute, particularly in a time of crisis (even the Chancellor of Germany did not grow up in a free society). Tymoshenko famously commented that European leaders were branding as 'stability' what was in reality undemocratic manipulation, and that if they weren't prepared to call a spade a spade they would have actually been better off keeping their mouths shut. If we acept her argument, we should look at the implications for ourselves in the EU. If we're praising 'stability' in a neighbouring country, we might be tempted to try and have a bit of that 'stability' ourselves. The alleged closeness of Berlusconi to Putin might be another example, or the relationship between Germany and Russia. The more we engage with these regimes and say that what they're doing is actually ok, the more this has the potential, however subtly, to affect our behaviour at home. Don't be naive.

Re-Packaging of Almost Finished Infrastructure Projects Creating the Illusion of Progress in Kiev (?)

A transport infrastructure revolution for Ukraine is long overdue

At first glance, there seems to be a bonanza of new transport infrastructure across the capital. There’s the so-called ‘new bridge’ in Podil (it’s a flyover), the apparent completion of the Moscow Square road junction works, a new terminal at the airport and at least THREE rail-related projects. Terminal F at Boryspil airport is nothing spectacular compared to, for example, the outstanding terminal the Portuguese built in Porto for Euro 2004 but, let's face it, for Ukraine it's not bad. The new government’s eagerness to take photo opportunities at these recently completed transport projects is understandable.

Party of Regions advertising for the local elections featured the newly ‘completed’ new railway bridge across the Dnipro in Kiev. The tv screens in the carriages of the Kiev metro (which show, among other things, animal funnies, anecdotes and news shorts) have in recent months contained newsreels highlighting the progress of various projects, including road repairs, a new Kiev suburban railway station at Livy Bereg and the President travelling on the inaugural train on the newest section of Kiev’s metro (it's not yet open to the public). An item this week shows workers busily laying tarmac with the benign communist-sounding headline ‘preparing for the winter’. At the reopening of the renovated fast tram line on the west side of the city, Prime Minister Azarov, in the paternalistic style beloved of the Kremlin, says to his workers "let's finally commission it on March 1".

However, on visiting the tramline myself today, it seems there is quite a bit of finishing to be done, and the reopening might have been slightly premature. At least three of the stops are still closed and nowhere near completion, and over half of the stops that are open are only partially completed, with passengers effectively standing in the middle of building sites waiting for their trams. Not that the work carried out isn’t, in its way, impressive. The newly renovated trams are clean and more modern looking, if not quite comfortable as such, and each tram includes a low floor section in the middle, which is reached by level access from proper platforms. Platforms for tram stops are of course standard practice across most of Europe but in Ukraine, where its customary to just clamber up from the trackside, it’s almost a revolution (I should however mention that, as almost none of the stations have step-free access, it will be of little use to the truly mobility-impaired, but now I'm getting fussy). The stations that are completed are nicely done, with metro station style barriers. But of course all these technical plusses were not thought up in the past 8 months of the Yanukovych administration, and in fact were by some miracle carried out under Kiev's much-maligned mayor Chernovetsky, who is now rapidly being sidelined under the new regime.

Being honest, transport construction projects is not an area of knowledge in which the average person in the streets excels. From my own experience having a degree in transport and logistics and working in transport journalism, the general public has little idea how long it takes to bring an infrastructure project from planning to completion. So it’s actually quite easy to persuade people that this has all been done in the last 8 months. And in a way, it has. We’ve become accustomed here to living with seemingly perpetual building sites, with often little sign of work being carried out. The sight of the Olympisky stadium complex with workers scurrying all over it is quite the culture shock in Ukraine. But we all know why construction projects here tend to drag on. It is normally a safe bet that somebody is laundering money through these sometimes lavish and leisurely-paced construction projects. A former close associate of Yanukovych-the now deceased former railways minister-is said to have performed a similar trick in the extensive reconstruction of some of the country’s railway stations.

The point is that the previous powers that be left plenty of partly-finished projects lying around which, with a kick up the arse to the relevant people, could pretty easily be turned into finished projects. And it’s nice to see these projects being completed rather than continuing to drag on. I remember hearing that the Moscow Square works were going to drag on into 2012, the year that, more than ever before, Kiev will be on show to the rest of Europe. So, credit where credit is due to the new government.

However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The new railway bridge, which incorporates a new road crossing, is not in fact complete. The sole user of another drawn out construction project, a double deck metro and road bridge via the north end of Trukhaniv island, is apparently the presidential motorcade. The fast tram line still requires work and there is a new terminal at Boryspil to complete for Euro 2012. And visitors to the country will not pull any punches with what they see when they get here.

What we don’t want to see is infrastructure development that is in fact more spin than substance. President or Prime Minister Putin (I’m not sure which, let’s just say ‘leader’) apparently once carried out an opening ceremony for a section of the Trans-Siberian highway which in fact couldn’t be driven across due to a number of uncompleted bridges. And if healthy oil and gas revenues doesn’t buy you decent infrastructure, I don’t know what will.

Ukraine needs to take a serious look at infrastructure provision for the future. Kiev’s ‘Miska Elektrichka’ project is a good start (it’s actually ‘elektropoyizd’ in Ukrainian, but granted that wouldn’t be as catchy). Talk of a real suburban rail system for Kiev which aims to replicate the situation in other European cities is really encouraging, and one only dreams that it might be of the pedigree of the S-Bahn systems in Germany or the RER in Paris.

Ukraine also needs motorways. It was a stroke of genius to make a section of motorway from Boryspil airport to Kiev to impress visitors, but anyone who has driven beyond the airport turning will know that this is not the situation throughout the rest of the country. Private companies would gladly come to Ukraine and construct toll motorways, as long as land could be compulsorily purchased and as long as those companies could be left to get on with it. Alas, the reality would be that murky figures would come out of the woodwork demanding that the work be carried out by Ukrainian companies and most likely planned to proceed at the leisurely pace that I described earlier. The result however, is little progress on building a motorway network for Ukraine, and many investors who will stay away if there isn’t one.

The other thing the country needs, but which admittedly sounds pie in the sky, is high speed rail (you must forgive me if the article from here on indulges my transport interests). Technically it wouldn’t be too difficult to do. Ukraine has open country that would require few tunnels or viaducts, there’s no need for expensive TGV-type trains-even 200km/h trains would be a lot quicker than anything currently running in Ukraine. Electrification has proven to be a lot cheaper per mile than in other countries. And the basic fact is that the current rail network doesn’t meet a lot of the country’s needs. There is no direct line from Kiev to Odesa for example, and a new line to Poland which allowed Warsaw to be reached in 4-5 hours, Berlin in 6-7 etc. would bring Kiev tangibly closer to Europe. They’re even developing high speed rail in Turkey, so why not Ukraine? Having said all that, I don’t expect any movement on this for a good 10 years or so.

Much more likely is arrival in Kiev of Russia’s fancy-looking Sapsan trains, but beyond the sexy lines, we shouldn’t get that excited about this. The Sapsan trains, which mainly do the Moscow-St. Petersburg run at present, are a derivative of the Siemens ICE/Velaro which operate in Germany, France and Spain at 300 km/h, yet there is not one single stretch of track in Russia where this speed is possible, the maximum being 200 km/h on some sections. That’s an incredibly expensive train to be using at only two thirds of capacity. The purchase of the trains is almost certainly a crony capitalist offshoot of the Nordstream gas pipeline deal, and it seems a small price to pay for being able to plug an umbilical gas chord into Europe’s largest economy. A Russian Railways employee even warned friends not to travel on the trains as they are travelling on infrastructure not even properly modernised for these speeds.

But the point is, to Joe Public, a train is a train, and Sapsan will no doubt start running to Kiev to much fanfare. And thus the potential for spin amongst the unwitting general public is endless. But if we see real modernisation here in the next 5 years, I will cheerfully eat my words. Finishing off a few odds and ends is a good start, but more of the same please!

Indulging my trainspotter instincts, here is a suggested high speed rail network for Ukraine (I know, I know, dream on...):

More on Ukraine's local election...

Free and fair?

Predictably, Tymoshenko has cried foul over the election results, and one might feel that, whilst she most likely does have a case in some instances, that she'll be looking to take any crumbs of hard evidence to her advantage. Batkivshchyna are demanding recounts and even re-votes in some areas. If accusations can be proven with hard evidence, then fair enough, but that has to be considered a big 'if' if Ukraine's politicised courts are to be involved. Former president Yushchenko has in contrast soberly accepted the results for his Our Ukraine party.

Outisde reaction continues to err on the side of caution where criticism is involved. The Council of Europe has endorsed the elections as free, but has said that Ukraine's election law is faulty, and have offered to assist Ukraine in drafting a new one. That's all well and good but, assuming Ukraine takes their advice and makes a better law, we won't see it in action until the next round of local elections for these precints in five years time, and who knows what the landscape will be then? In the meantime, if these elections have produced unsatisfactory provision of local offcials, they now have five years to repent at leisure. That will seem rather soft to some.

The CIS countries have given the elections the thumbs up and little criticism has been heard from Russian monitors (although given that many of the equivalent officials in Russia are not even directly elected, you have to ask what wisdom they have to impart to Ukraine on the subject). An extremely interesting aspect to this election has been the situation in Crimea, where several pro Russian unity parties have complained of being marginalised by the Party of Regions, an odd twist to the more easterly direction of Ukraine's current politics. So for some 'pro-Russians' (it's actually quite a careless term), perhaps the democracy of the past five years wasn't so bad after all (?).

Domestically, the Central Election Commission shares the Council of Europe's view that the law on local elections needs to be changed but doesn't see grounds to doubt the results. The western-funded Committee of Voters of Ukraine says that long queues were the biggest problem and that violations were 'not systemic' (either that, or the manipulators have adopted a less conspicuous 'mix and match' approach to vote-rigging).

There has of course been serious criticism. US-funded NGO Opora in its monitoring of the elections has said that that there were simply too many violations for the elections to be considered fair. These could be dismissed as one organisation's take on the elections, but repeated crashes of the organisation's website just as the process of compiling evidence of violations was gathering pace, does appear suspicious, and rather raises the suspicion that there is indeed something to hide in some quarters. It is perhaps slightly reminiscent of the cyber attacks on Estonia during the 2007 war memorial row.

So make of it all what you will...

Ukraine's Local Elections: Valid Conclusions Elusive

There's a temptation to avoid the issue of the local elections completely, to dismiss it as either an irrelevance or just a massive dog's dinner. Where do you start? Well, one has to start somewhere...

At first glance the results seem to be yet another triumph in the relentless onward march of the Party of Regions machine. Across the country, with results yet to be declared in most cases, the President's party is believed to have won 36% of the vote across the nation, trouncing it's nearest rival, Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna by a margin of three to one. But whether this is a success rather depends on what the endgame is, of which we know little. In most European countries the governing party would be jolly pleased with 36% of the vote, so if we are following the European democratic model, all well and good. However, if the aim is to replicate the success of Putin's United Russia, this result suggests that there is rather a long way to go. It shows that the Party of Regions has a robust support base behind it, mostly in its heartlands, but doesn't suggest the support is keeping up with the level, for example, of billboard advertising or positive television coverage.

The electoral landscape has definitely changed. There was no sign on the streets of Kiev this time of the previously ubiquitous tents representing an apparent array of choice. Most billboard advertising around the city seemed, anecdotally, to be for the Regions and Yatsenyuk's 'Front for Change', which is looking more and more like Ukraine's answer to the pro-Kremlin 'Just/Fair Russia' party, even having to deny rumours that it is to merge into the Regions. The Regions must be delighted that Tihipko's 'Strong Ukraine' doesn't seem to have fared strongly at all, a step backwards from his double digit first round showing in the presidential election.

Ukrainian nationalist party Svoboda's strong showing in Western Ukraine will concern many observers. However, whether this stands to have any truly grave consequences remains to be seen. After all, again looking from a European perspective, the success of the far right is not a trend unique to Ukraine, and Svoboda can join a long list (Jobbik in Hungary, the Slovak National Party, the BNP in the UK, Austria's very own 'Freedom' party etc. etc.). The west of the country might feel that it was abused and taken for granted by 'Orange' politicians whose real interests were far from the Carpathians. Nationalist parties always do well out of any feeling from a part of the electorate that it has been marginalised, and they do well in fringe elections, such as local (as, in the EU, European elections). 31% in Ivano-Frankivsk and 32% in Ternopil seems very high but it could be seen just as a cry for help in what are, for Western Ukraine, uncertain times. One might even sympathise as many in the region most likely consider themselves targets of state-sponsored racism, if the rants of the current education minister are anything to go by. From a more Russia-based political perspective, Zhirinovsky has always been tolerated, the difference being that the overlap with Kremlin sympathies is non-existent between Svoboda and authorities here. Again the Regions win, as those of the ilk of Tabachnyk et al get to paint the 'Galicians' as destructive 'anti-Ukrainian' fascists or whatever.

More attempts at conclusions to follow, perhaps...

From Holodomor to Holocaust

Ukraine must participate in the process of re-examining Hitler and Stalin's crimes

At a time when the issue of Soviet crimes looked to have been heading for obscurity, at least in this part of the world, a recently-published book "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder of Harvard University is leading to a fevered discussion in the western media. Most of the initial discussion, it has to be said, and sometimes fierce criticism, has centered around how Snyder’s approach might affect our attitude to The Holocaust. My school history lessons in the UK were very good at teaching us the wrongs of fascism, how Hitler came to power, how the war started and the grisly details of the death camps and concentration camps. School trips from the UK to Auschwitz are common, but quite how many of those trips also take in commemoration of the Katyn massacre, in which many from nearby Kraków perished, is another question. The worry from some perspectives is that remembering the crimes of one side somehow takes away from the remembrance of the other, particularly if these are not equivalent to each other. Each group can end up concerning itself solely with its own tragedy, at the expense of considering the bigger picture.

Snyder’s approach involves taking the entire period in which both Hitler and Stalin were in power, and in which over 14 million people died, and an entire territory where most of the killing took place, an area from the Baltic to the Black Sea. That interestingly looks outside several contexts which normally fashion our view of events: the context of national boundaries, the concept of the western 1939-45 war or the 1941-45 ‘Great Patriotic’ war. One interesting spinoff of the Snyder school of thought is that, by taking this wider period, we start by looking at an atrocity that is currently in real danger of sliding into obscurity, the Holodomor.

That means that, under Mr Snyder's analysis, it is in fact the Holodomor, the 1932-33 forced starvation of the Ukrainian peasant class, that begins the dynamic of Soviet-Nazi mass murder that culminates in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. His cited death toll for this of 3.5 million is at an extremely conservative end of the scale, with many suggesting the figure might have been as high as 5 or even 9 million deaths. But, if true, who would argue that 3.5 million people artificially starving to death, with those that didn't die surviving by eating rats or even the bodies of the dead, isn't horrendous? The ensuing Russification and Sovietisation of this very territory, and the denial and obscuring of the facts and evidence during firstly the latter days of the USSR, and latterly the Stalin apologists in the modern day Russian government and recently installed Ukrainian authorities, hinders investigation into the crime.

Only the 2005-2009 period lead to a real coming to terms with this dark chapter of the country's history and, if there is a criticism, it is precisely that the centering on the term genocide lead to exactly the same temptation to view the suffering of Ukrainians outside of the wider context. A case for the Holodomor being genocide could certainly be made, for example that the purging of the Ukrainian intellectual/cultural elites had already taken place 3-4 years earlier and that this coupled with the starving of the peasant class constitutes a genocide of the Ukrainian nation, but such a conclusion already benefits from looking outside the 1932-33 context. In any case, the clear aim was not to annihilate all persons of Ukrainian ethnicity but to bring Ukraine to heel (a desire that has evidently not gone away). Snyder points to several crimes during this period which could be termed genocide (under the official UN definition), and expresses the personal opinion that this Ukrainian genocide was one of them.

A central tenet of Snyder’s argument is that Hitler and Stalin tacitly enabled each other’s crimes. So, for example, the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact lead to a huge number of European Jews coming under Nazi control, whilst under Soviet control, Poland (including Western Ukraine) and the Baltic States suffered mass purges aimed at their subjugation. So no one event or crime should be viewed in isolation, and this also has a bearing on another controversial and potentially divisive eposide in Ukrainian history.

At a lecture I recently attended at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Swedish academic Per Anders Rudling, who studies Ukrainian nationalist groups such as UPA in Western Ukraine, organizations that did indeed collaborate with the Nazis, pointed out that the knowledge of how the Soviets had treated their 'brothers/cousins' in Central and Eastern Ukraine had made the fascist ideology more appealing than the communist/socialist one. So, an isolated example of how one extreme fueled the other. Another interesting point that he made was that those of one sympathy tended to follow the tactics of another, so that Ukraine pre-2010 had tried to replace 'heroes of the USSR' with 'heroes of Ukraine', most controversially in Yuschenko's posthumous award to Stepan Bandera. As Rudling points out, if that is our approach to history, perhaps we should not be surprised at monuments to Catherine the Great or, as we've seen in Zaporizhia, Stalin, appearing.

In the current climate, with SBU archives slammed shut, and plans for an about turn in the content of Ukraine's school history textbooks to bring them into line with those in Russia, the conditions for an impartial and fair-minded re-assessment of history seem far off. This is also yet another issue that is a casualty of Ukraine's lack of even a distant EU membership perspective. Officials in Brussels prefer to focus on pragmatic issues such as energy security, people-trafficking and free trade, but this means that this important dimension in informing elites and assisting Ukraine in forming its diplomatic relations falls by the wayside, or is left entirely to influences from the east.

Therefore it is up to Ukrainians themselves to ponder these issues independently, and let's hope we'll see Ukrainian and Russian-language translations of "Bloodlands" here soon. A new perspective, new awareness, and a new debate can ensure Ukraine's traegedies are truly not forgotten.

My response to Peter Hitchens' anti-Ukrainian article

This is my response to Peter Hitchens' dreadful recent article in the Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1315318/As-Ukrainians-force-Russians-turn-their-language-change-names-I-ask-Is-worlds-absurd-city.html)

Picking up Mr Hitchens' poor analogy, I will attempt to offer a better, more topical one:


Supposing, after years of economic and political pressure, a new government came to power in the Republic of Ireland that was pro-British, backed by big business and media owners even though an enormous chunk of the population was against it.

Supposing this new government allowed a British military base on Irish territory, and allowed it to remain indefinitely.

Supposing the new Irish Prime Minister withdrew an official website which had detailed the sufferings of the Irish Potato Famine, and that the new authorities attempted to absolve Britain of all historical responsibility for the deaths of 1 million people.

Supposing they appointed an education minister of Ireland who hated Irish culture, advocated the teaching of an imperialist British view of history in schools, and opposed the use and promotion of the Gaelic language.

Supposing the British Prime Minister had been quoted as saying that the dismantling of the British Empire was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.

Supposing that the actions of the current Irish government were pushing Ireland closer and closer to being reabsorbed into the UK.

Perhaps this better illustrates the reality in Ukraine in 2010.

Or perhaps Mr Hitchens thinks the Republic of Ireland is an 'annoying mini state' too? Quite likely.

EU and UK visa policy towards Ukrainians - 'go back to Russia!' (?)

The shameful treatment of Ukrainians by the Schengen and UK visa systems continues to hit new heights, with at least two more atrocious stories emerging this week.

The UK's Independent highlighted the rejections of visas for Ukrainian children who were due to spend a month away from the vicinity of Chernobyl. Whether these trips are healthwise still strictly necessary is open to question, but the point is that these summer trips have gone on for years without any problems. In just one example, only 7 out of 17 children due to spend part of the summer on the Isle of Wight were permitted to travel and, to make matters worse, they were in some cases informed only the night before travelling, with suitcases packed, that they would not be making the trip. The UK Border Agency tried to blame it on unsuitable host families in the UK, but the claims seem to be spurious.

Another case highlighted this week was of two PhD students bound for Italy who had their student visas rejected. There is an exhaustive list of similar cases, including the Ukrainian dance troupe which protested against their UK visa rejections by performing outside the British Embassy in Kiev. A folk festival in Bellingham had been deprived of the same pleasure. A recent article in the Kyiv Post highlighted an unfortunate Ukrainian student's extended stay in the departure lounge of Paris Charles de Gaulle airport due to the Icelandic volcano. The fact that he had friends in nearby Paris and was on a US student visa cut no ice with the French authorities despite clear evidence in favour of the applicant. Another case brought to my attention by my father was a group of Ukrainian steam train operators which was prevented from attending a gathering of railway preservationist organisations in Hungary. The gathering was part of the process of trying to bring Ukrainians round to creating the kind of railway preservation projects which have grown tourism in myriad places across the continent. Such developments are fairly alien in somewhere like Ukraine, but these are good examples of how visa rejections will serve to reinforce the status quo.

One not to be ignored result of this policy is the stress that it has caused to EU citizens in each case. With cases of a more personal nature this stress is amplified. In such cases the inviting party is treated as irrelevant to the matter in hand or even worse, de facto made out to be liars. These rejections are damaging business, cultural, educational, family and personal contacts of EU citizens. Don't we have rights too?

With the common thread here seeming to be the apparently arbitrary nature of many visa rejections, does it smack of conspiracy theories to begin to question whether there is a more sinister motive at work here? Are the EU and UK in fact telling Ukrainians in fairly blunt terms to 'go back to Russia'? The line has been drawn and, sorry, you're on the Moscow side. If this is not the message they wish to give out, they're not doing a very good job!

Visa barrier to EU ineffective?

It is worth checking out these figures recently published by Reuters about illegal workers and remittances:

http://www.forexyard.com/en/news/EEurope-emigres-sending-less-cash-home-in-crisis-2010-05-31T135812Z-CORRECTED-FACTBOX

The remittances as percentage of GDP statistics are interesting from the point of view of countries which do and don't have visa free access to Western Europe. I am intrigued that the statistics for Ukraine don't look markedly different to those for Romania and Bulgaria, who of course have the free right to travel in the EU, but in theory not to work. That the percentage of GDP for remittances in Ukraine grew last year just as more Ukrainians returned home is simply evidence of how much the Ukrainian economy at home has shrunk. Many of the Romanians and Bulgarians working abroad went there years ago, when travel restrictions were still in place. Are we to understand that the reason the Ukrainian levels for 2007 and 2008 were similar to those for Romania and Bulgaria and not higher is the 'successful' barring of Ukrainians from travelling to the EU? The EU's restrictive visa policies frequently prevent Ukrainians from visiting friends, partners or taking holidays.

Are we to believe that, without these restrictions, they would be as high as they are for Albania, Bosnia or Serbia? This doesn't seem convincing to me. The latter three countries also had visa restrictions on them in the three preceding years, and two of them still do, and they still manage to travel and find this work despite this. So it seems that harder visa policies do very little to keep out those that want to work abroad illegally, and instead damage trade in business, tourism and the maintainance of family, friendship and personal relationships for both sides. 'Strong borders' might be a popular political move but, within Europe, they don't seem to make sense and they don't seem to be working. This needs to be looked at by the EU.

A simplified procedure, an 'innocent until proven guilty' policy and a more stringent procedure only for those that have previously overstayed visas seems to be the evident way forward. Or even better, visa free travel! It might not have the effect people imagine, and may in fact simply open the floodgates to increased tourism and personal contact. After all, if 30% of Albania's population is already abroad elsewhere in Europe, the Schengen floodgates are leaky to say the least!

What is Europe’s role in a world shaped by the US and China?

My unsuccessful entry for the Nico Colchester prize. Not my best work but I may as well post it somewhere.

What is Europe’s role in a world shaped by the US and China?

Europe’s lack of ambition will see its place in the new world order decided by default

The much-heralded ‘rise of Asia’ might not quite be upon us, but clearly the increasing economic power of China, and the growing importance of other players, asks serious questions about Europe’s future role on the world stage. European countries make up more than half of the G8, but only 5 of the G20 (and are jolly lucky to have the EU thrown in as the 6th). It is clear which way the wind is blowing. Europe however, appears preoccupied. After all, we’ve only just managed to push through the Lisbon Treaty, we need to work out what to do about the Turkey question, we have the next round of enlargement coming up (Iceland and Croatia), we need to deepen before widening etc. etc. That is all well and good, but while Europe dwells on the minutiae, the very shape and future of Europe is being decided around it.

It is already abundantly clear that Europe, whilst still important, is ceasing to truly be a mover and shaker internationally. Militarily, it is still the US that takes a lead. European nations are left to either opt in to their operations or opt out and criticize from the sidelines, but nothing more. Economically, China is using its new found muscle to get robustly involved in Africa, and there is interest in Eastern Europe too. A recent Chinese offer of a $1bn dollar loan to Moldova amounts to virtually a tenth of that country’s GDP. While Europe views these places as basket cases and moralizes to them, China is not afraid to get its hands dirty. This is bound to lead over time to an increasing loss of influence. How long before ‘ignore Germany’ becomes ‘ignore Europe’?

One key area of policy for Europe’s future is enlargement. The most recent enlargements have panicked some ‘Old Europeans’ but the brakes now being slammed on the limits of expansion are worrying. The EU baulked at the prospect of giving a membership pledge to a fragile embryonic democracy in Ukraine, and the experiment is now rapidly being shelved by that country’s new government. The chance may have gone for a generation. Turkey’s EU membership hopes are in the balance as big players France and Germany look for a way out, largely under pressure from their electorates. Russia has never been in the EU’s membership sights, and individual member states now endorse Russia’s ‘sovereign democracy’ by prioritizing bi-lateral relations with the Kremlin ahead of their EU and NATO allies and commitments. France now talks of requiring national referenda on every future enlargement, tantamount to a veto. That Iceland has been rushed to the front of the queue is very telling. It is a ‘safe’ enlargement, they will be net contributors, it’s part of a process of consolidation of Europe’s existing wealth. After all that, Iceland’s own voters may yet vote down EU membership out of their own narrow self-interest, as Norway twice did. Croatia will get in because ‘it’s small’ and by that logic Balkan states might sneak in one by one, maybe even Moldova too. This tells us the limits of the European imagination in the 21st century. Perhaps the continent is already preparing for a status as the world’s retirement home.

We still have time. Such economic and political clout as Europe has will not collapse overnight (not forgetting that it’s a very long time indeed since Europe’s imperial powers were pre-eminent on the world stage). It is one of the cash cows on which China’s export-lead growth depends, and it will still for the foreseeable future be the most natural and reliable ally of the United States in many areas. However, Europe should take the following two steps.

The first is simple. Europe must believe in itself. Contrary to what many careless commentators, stuck in the short-term viewing prism that is the global worldwide recession are saying, the EU has not suddenly become a bad idea. The single market was a good idea, economic integration was a good idea, even the Euro and enlargement made sound sense, and they still do. The EU has a proven track record in strengthening and spreading democracy and economic development. It should aim to ride out the current storm, and should already be looking beyond it.

The second is that Europe must think big, and that means enlargement, and not forgetting its history. The EU of 30 years ago saw the need to take in the new democracies of Spain, Portugal and Greece, but has so far failed to take on challenges like Moldova or Ukraine. This position should be rapidly revised. The EU must also take a united line on Russia and should be ready for any slips by the current regime that might open the door to democratic reform. If the EU could expand its long-term horizons by considering Russia has an eventual EU member in 2 or 3 decades, this would send a stronger signal of intent to China and the US, who were not expecting the EU to be arriving on their borders. The Russia story since 1991 should tell us that, if the opportunity comes around again, Europe must be more, not less, involved than it was in the 1990s. Likewise with Turkey on board, the EU’s famed soft power might reach the parts others cannot reach in the Irans and Syrias of this world, making it truly valuable and hard to be ignored.

Europe has a choice of the type of role in which it casts itself. Does it want to be a staunchly Atlanticist UK, an idiosyncratically self-important France, an altruistic Scandinavia or, perhaps most cynically, a neutral and inward-looking global Switzerland. In parallel to Europe itself, Switzerland has seen half a decade of relative economic decline. It may still be a prosperous and pleasant enough place to live but it lacks any serious clout internationally. An unambitious Europe must be warned that it could very easily be heading down the same path. That might sound alright to your average punter in a Western European country, who feels his or her country’s most pressing need is to limit the few pounds or Euros a year that he/she puts into the EU’s coffers, but when the next generation is left at the international negotiating table with little say in proceedings, they probably won’t thank us for it.

A Western Coalition?

Western Ukraine needs a new strategy

Where is Western Ukraine in the new political order? You could be forgiven for thinking it had disappeared from the map altogether. The new President has put a Russian in charge of the country, and set out on a course coherent with restoring Ukraine’s place to that of the ‘little Russia’ which had for the past 19 years existed only the minds of out-of-touch, chauvinistic Muscovites. Western Ukraine is now a marginalised and, some would argue, despised frontier province with nothing to offer the new order. It may even now, some might suppose, become the ‘enemy’ on which the need for ‘stability’ (meaning authoritarianism) is sold to the people, in the way that Russia scapegoats the clearly terrifying Estonia and Georgia (and up until now Ukraine) as reasons to stick to ‘strong government’. Egg-throwing and rostrum-blocking in parliament does little to dispel these insinuations.

If the new order is to persist, it poses questions to the west of the country that have never before been so prescient. Independent Ukraine was born of what one might call an unholy alliance between the communists of the east and the nationalists of the west. For many years this grand bargain carried benefits as well as disadvantages for both sides. Whilst an eastern-based business mafia held sway over the country’s industry and economy, a kind of ‘cultural mafia’ advanced a linguistic and cultural agenda that more favoured the west of the country. This grand bargain is now breaking up. Some would say this breaking up was started in the Yushchenko era. Others might contend that it is now, under Yanukovych, that one side of the country feels most disenfranchised. What is clear is that nothing is now being done with the aim of enhancing national unity. Instead of an over-arching, inclusive, reform-minded government under a prime minister such as Tigipko which the most optimistic might have hoped for, the new President has opted for a Russo-centric position. It is difficult to see how divisive appointments such as Tabachnyk can be considered necessary pragmatism. The idea that in the country that suffered the Holodomor children might in the very near future be opening textbooks that state that Stalin was a ‘strong leader who made tough decisions for Russia’ is going to be most sickening to those in the west.

Part of Western Ukraine’s problem is that the figures they have backed in the past have in fact served the region’s wider interests very poorly. Although large numbers turned out in the presidential second round to support Tymoshenko, there seemed little to recommend her, apart from that she wasn’t Yanukovych. The orange politicians who wrap themselves in Ukrainian patriotism in fact have interests much closer to the centre. At the other extreme, Ukrainian nationalist or patriotic parties can be seen as somewhat eccentric, perhaps extremist, in any case for many people not truly electable. Western Ukraine is clearly different to the rest of the country, culturally and linguistically and in its aspirations. These differences are only being exacerbated in the current circumstances. Western Ukrainians themselves need to start thinking about how to empower themselves against the current unenviable odds. A lot will depend on what sort of system emerges over the next couple of years.

If the current semi-parliamentary system persists, the west might look at its options modelled on regional/cultural political blocks in other European countries. In Italy, the Northern League sheds any illusions that it is a party of national consensus, and seeks to represent its regional interest within the country, where it feels under-represented. In Romania and Slovakia, the Hungarian minority is represented by Hungarian coalition parties. These coalition parties host within them a diverse set of views, from moderates to nationalists, but who manage to agree on over-arching concerns, and lobby for concessions in these areas, frequently as kingmakers in coalitions. Strong patriots might feel a need to prioritise issues such as UPA recognition, but in reality, forsaking the bigger issues over such matters does little to help the next generation. Even the People’s Self Defence block, which is an attempt at coalition party building, does not have a broad enough appeal. As the Conservatives in the UK who are learning coalition politics from scratch now realise, one has to look at the big picture. The over-arching issues for Western Ukrainians are obvious: education and language, relations with Europe and the need for a credible economic development policy for the region. So a kind of ‘Western Coalition’ could be the answer.

However, we face the real prospect that the 2012 parliamentary elections may mean very little. Even if they are free and fair, including access of all political groupings to the media, the acquisition of ‘tushki’ might allow the powers that be to ‘tidy up’ any slightly messy outcome to the vote. Or who is to say at the moment that these elections won’t go the way of the currently delayed local elections? If this election finishes with the west of the country having no voice, thoughts will inevitably turn to the idea of secession. A strategy for independence would then need some serious thought. If there is a clear sentiment in favour of the idea, unofficial polls might be conducted, perhaps modelled on the unofficial pro-independence referendums that have been taking place across Catalonia.

Independence would have many advantages. Patriotic Western Ukraine would have the over-arching unity of purpose that has benefited the likes of Hungary and Poland. The overseas diaspora would be able to assist in the kinds of ways they were in Estonia, for exaample. Also, with suggestions that Moldova might just sneak into the EU because ‘it’s small’ (a lame criteria perhaps, but it is how many in Brussels seem to think) perhaps the EU will be able to stomach a bite-size Ukraine of, say, 7-10 million people rather than 46 million, a good chunk of whom it can be argued don’t even want to be there. A small ship is easier to turn. Observe how previously backsliding Slovakia leapfrogged its neighbours to join the Euro.

This may all of course be pie in the sky. Secession is difficult to achieve from any country. However, if aggravations produce policy concessions rather than independence, this may in itself be valuable enough, and would be preferable to marginalisation. Against this however there is the question of the west-looking centre of Ukraine. They might be the next to be marginalised.

Perhaps a separatist approach is not the best way forward at a time when a united opposition is most crucial, but nonetheless Western Ukraine needs to think very carefully before persisting with politicians who talk the talk, but in fact have little interest in the region. There is a grave danger of Western Ukrainians continuing to throw away their votes to minigarchs, thugs and tushki, and it is perhaps time that, as a united front, the region acts for itself. In any case, if the coming years prove to be difficult, a distinction may develop between those who understand and defend their civil and democratic rights, and those who are prepared to allow their freedoms to be compromised for the 'greater good'.

Of course, the best scenario is not independence for Western Ukraine but for the entire country to be anchored into the EU accession process which helps to foster civil rights, democracy and economic reform for the country as a whole, and which would put pay to many of the worries that currently exist. It is only in the complete absence of a membership perspective for Ukraine that worries about where Ukraine is drifting have become all too real, and hence the need to possibly take a look at some radical alternative scenarios. The alternative of wait and see could be very costly.

To take the analogy of Belgium, another European country that is frequently described as divided, a few decades ago the French-speaking south dominated industrially and culturally, whilst the Dutch-speaking north was poorer. A few years on it is now the north that is in the ascendency with its new industries, with the once proud south a decaying rustbelt. Steel and coalmining are yesterday’s industries, light manufacturing, services and tourism are tomorrow’s, and it is Western Ukraine that is best placed to grasp this opportunity, if it is allowed to.

Has change in power panicked European Union into action?

-as published in Kyiv Post

http://kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/61538/print/

European Parliament Declaration on Ukraine: Has Yanukovych’s victory panicked Brussels into actually doing something?

Unpublished piece written 26th February 2010

The EU has woken up, or so it seems. It’s no secret to people here that Europe has been steadily losing influence in Ukraine over the past couple of years, and Yanukovych’s victory may in part be attributed to Ukrainians feeling they had nothing to lose by moving eastwards again. Brussels was perhaps hoping that they could rely on ‘orange’ politicians to bumble on without burning their European bridges. Well not any more, unless Yanukovych is taking a clever and calculated gamble.

The European Parliament’s 25^th February resolution on Ukraine was for pro-Europeans here the most encouraging noise to come out of the EU for some time. Experts have often pointed to Article 49 of the Maastricht Treaty which seemingly enshrines the right of any European country, provided it fulfils the Union’s criteria, to apply for membership as reason to give Ukraine hope, but in practice Brussels representatives have often ducked the issue (or simply pointed out that Ukraine had not fulfilled the terms of previous EU-Ukraine agreements). The Strasbourg-based parliament is not the primary driver of EU policy, but it is far from being the easily-ignored talking shop of a few years ago. They have real power to put issues on the agenda. The process towards being granted a ‘membership perspective’ (in EU parlance, a clear signal to begin the lengthy accession process) may not be granted quickly, but the continued legitimisation of the issue builds up over time, as can be seen in the cases of the Balkans and Turkey.

Contrast this with the vague statements made in the May 2009 preamble of the Eastern Partnership, which sought even to avoid the phrase ‘European countries’ in reference to the 6 former Soviet states that sit between the EU and Russian Federation, for fear of raising membership hopes, with references to visa facilitation also watered down. Last week’s mention in the EP resolution of a ‘road map’ with the end objective of visa-free travel to the EU looks like quite a turnaround from what we’ve seen previously. Suddenly the EU has realised it will actually have to do something to keep Ukraine strung along.

As for the Copenhagen Criteria for accession, with the basic requirements that the applicant is a democracy, has a functioning market economy, respects minorities and the rule of law, Ukraine is much closer to these than it was a few years ago. NGO Freedom House now rates Ukraine as a ‘free democracy’ (in contrast to Russia which is in the third category of ‘unfree’, or current candidate Turkey which has the status of ‘partly free’) and accession to the WTO is evidence of market economy status, leaving rule of law as the most obvious Achilles’ heel.

Even if the end objective of EU membership were not actually achieved, the accession process would be far from pointless. An association agreement and deep free trade agreement would provide many of the benefits of EU membership, and we could expect at least incremental progress in the areas of economic reform, good governance and maybe even rule of law. One only has to look at the current situation in Turkey, where the military is now on the back foot as democratically-elected forces strengthen their mandate. Insiders say that even the free trade agreement currently in prospect would give Ukraine something approaching European Economic Area status, which would be hugely beneficial to Ukraine.

However, on two issues a great deal stands to be lost before we ever get to that point. Of the country’s leading politicians, only Mr. Tihipko has stated what many ordinary Ukrainians fail to understand, that Yanukovych’s stated aim of entering into the Eurasian economic space and customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan may all but end the European dream. The EU’s economic acquis will almost certainly be incompatible with the Eurasian model (not to speak of its business practices). Most people when asked say they would like to belong to both, but this is not practically realistic. As Tihipko points out, Ukraine would potentially be giving up a great deal for very little gained. Russia’s resource-driven economic growth owes little to trade liberalization or economic integration.

If one can attribute such tactical brilliance to the man, Yanukovych may have cottoned on to the trick that Belarussian leader Aleksander Lukashenka has been using for some time, of realising that there is great play to be made from playing off the east and the west against each other for his country’s own benefit, as can be seen in energy deals struck with Russia and a degree of political thaw with the EU. The position of the 6 Eastern Partnership states has been compared with Yugoslavia under Tito, stuck on a pendulum destined to swing between east and west. Whereas five years ago it swung westwards, the Yanukovych victory only confirms a swing to the east that has been in the air for some time. But the country is likely to keep swinging back and forth unless one side or the other comes up with a trump card, and gas could be that card.

The joint ownership plans for Ukraine’s gas network should be treated with extreme wariness. Firstly, the EU as such cannot buy pipelines, so the ‘EU share’ of this part ownership plan would, we can expect, be with a private company in a member state. On the Russian side, Gazprom is the only show in town. What is more, many energy companies in Europe have or are forming closer and closer links with Gazprom. Therefore Ukraine risks being sidelined by the ‘EU’ share being put in the hands of a company that would prioritise its relations with Gazprom over the interests of Ukraine. Or worse, what is to stop Gazprom simply buying up the ‘EU’ share as well, and then where would we be? When Armenia built a pipeline south to Iran in order to diversify supply, Gazprom simply bought the pipeline. Ukraine’s gas problem is not that of losing transit provider status, but of worsening conditions for its heavy industry and its citizenry. As a report by London-based think tank The European Council on Foreign Relations said last year ‘countries can do without IKEA, but they can’t do without gas’. The EU should indeed wake up, or it could be ‘game over’ for them in Ukraine.