Fundacja im. Stefana Batorego

International Program

The Enlarged EU and Ukraine: New Relations

contact:
Grzegorz Gromadzki
ggromadzki@batory.org.pl,
Anna Wróbel
awrobel@batory.org.pl

The project is financed by the Stefan Batory Foundation (Warsaw), International Rennaissance Foundation (Kyiv), Open Society Institute (Budapest) and has been supported by the Poland-America-Ukraine Cooperation Initiative (PAUCI), financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Interviews

Interview with Volodymyr Pyekhota, MP

Head of "European Choice" faction

What does Ukraine's European choice mean to you?

Ukraine's European choice is our nation's way to a civilised democratic society through achievement of stable economic development and creation of an effective market economy, improvement of our people's living standard, construction of a civil society and democratic state institutions.

For me it is not a formal declaration, this makes up the sense of my present activities as a Parliamentary deputy, a politician and a leader of the European Choice deputy group.

European choice does not imply that we have suddenly begun to see clearly and realised that we must become the Europeans, at the beginning of the XXI century. Yet ages ago, in Kyiv Rus times, as well as during hetmanship and the Cossacks, the Ukrainians played a noticeable role in political, cultural and economic processes taking place on the territory of Europe.

Certain historical events now brought Ukraine nearer then alienated it from the Western European world. But the fact that Ukraine did not keep out of the European geopolitical processes is indisputable. Today, when Ukraine has already begun to count out the second decade of its independence, the course toward European integration acquired strategic significance for the country. Parliamentary deputies who united in our group proceeded exactly from that consideration. We see our main task in unification of all progressive parliamentary forces for legislative guaranteeing of all the reformatory processes and transformations necessary for our country's accession to the EU.

Causes and obstacles of Ukraine's participation in the processes of European integration.

These can be divided into two groups: the inner and the outer ones.

As regards the inner causes and obstacles. These are formed by resistance put up by certain part of our people and some political forces. They have still been living in nostalgia of the USSR and build their policy proceeding from our temporary troubles in economic and social spheres. This is also the imperfection and instability of our legislation, existence of shadow economy and some other things.

But the fact that the EU does not hasten with Ukraine's approach to the Community is also an objective one. This is also the insufficient technical aid in questions of harmonization of laws and procedures, as well as the delay in giving of a status of "a country with market economy" to Ukraine and in our country's admission to the World Trade Organisation.

However, the role of Western structures as regards their influence upon the reformation processes in Ukraine should not be overestimated.

Realisation of either one or another recipe for social-economic development and agreement of the West's requirements as regards the processes of European integration is, first, our own state's concern. The nihilism syndrome peculiar to our people has played a fatal role in selection of the recipes for reformation, that is, we tend to cast off everything concerned with the past, categorically, — not only harmful things but rational ones, too. It is characteristic: the belief that our country is doomed to adoption of someone's, mostly Western, experience, has become one of the consequences of this nihilism. Let us remember that we considered the IMF's recipes to be the only right and having no alternative ones. Our mass-media and then the "advanced" intelligentsia praised the transmitters of these recipes, and those who were inconsistent with them deserved to be pinned a label of "red ones" or "conservatives" on them. In addition, all this took place when these recipes had already been known as ruining ones; when those countries that had previously been backward (South Korea, Thailand, China) reached success exactly owing to involving of their domestic, not foreign reformers, that is, those who was able to combine the best of their own with someone else's best.

Undoubtedly, some directions of the reforms proposed to us had been obviously adjusted by the West to its strategic interests within the limits of globalisation processes. First we should mention the project of the so-called Washington consensus that is being realised through recipes proposed by the IMF and other international financial and economic organizations. Exactly the recipes of Washington consensus gave an opportunity of re-distribution of the world's resources in favour of transnational companies and leading countries of the West.

By the way, the West has never applied the recipes of Washington consensus to itself. Here we can see a double standard: there are certain approaches to those who are "their own people" and different treatment of others, — of those who are regarded as potential objects of global expansion. For example, the IMF set the requirement of openness for Ukraine as an urgent one; they also proposed to make a transition to market economy by an "explosive", shock method. At the same time, Poland was allowed to deviate from these hard and harmful rules. However, in the post-war period Western European countries, [as well as] Japan and Turkey were opening very slowly: it took them 15 years and more. As a rule, it was in proportion as they achieved certain competitiveness and high-level technological maturity. In the present global situation, those economies which are transitive or developing ones are not only being injured by a sudden openness but also get into a credit dependence. All this caused such destructive after-effects that the IMF itself had to admit the grave consequences of realisation of its recommendations.

All these objective and rigid realities of the present times should be taken into consideration. It is clear that Ukraine's chances to influence the global situation are more than poor ones. But our task is to keep up with positive changes in the future and to derive benefit from them. We can and should cooperate with international financial and economic organisations, but this cooperation must be based upon our state and people's interests.

How do you see your country's contribution to the future of Europe; Ukraine's role (real and desirable) in all-European political, economic and public processes?

Ukraine has already done, is now doing and will do a lot for the future of Europe. Let us remember an unprecedented step taken by our state at the daybreak of its independence, when we declared our status of a non-nuclear state and got out of our nuclear weapons, out of our own free will. And today Ukrainian military units under the aegis of the UNO perform their peace-making missions in the world's hot spots.

I hope that the time will come and Ukraine will restore its fame as Europe's granary, though not everybody would like this.

In addition, Ukraine's scientific and intellectual potential, as well as our people's cultural and historical attainments could be used more effectively, on condition that we integrated into Europe.

I am convinced that we do have the things to be proud of and the things to share with the world community. However, this process must be reciprocal and mutually beneficial.

Role of our neighbouring countries intending to become the EU members soon (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia), in realisation of Ukraine's European choice.

We must realise our own choice by ourselves. I have already said about this. But we would be wrong if we did not take into account our closest neighbours' experience, the experience gained by those countries which had already passed the stage of a transitional economy. We have close relations with these countries in economic and cultural spheres, as well as in political and intergovernmental fields. We are prepared to improve our further cooperation with these countries that should be based on mutually beneficial partnership. I think that exactly the above-mentioned countries that had made the way very much similar to our own one (be it in some way different from ours), are able to understand our problems and assist in our joining to the EU.

Ukraine's effective way to European structures: independently or together with Russia?

Owing to our country's balanced and responsible foreign policy activities it has succeeded in acquiring of a reputation of a constructive reliable partner. Among the post-Soviet countries Ukraine was the first one that established partnership with the European Union and signed the Charter on special partnership with NATO. Ukraine became a member of the Council of Europe and the UNO's Security Council. In 1998 and 2000 the Strategy and the Programme of Ukraine's integration into the EU was approved by the President of Ukraine's decrees. The EU's Common Strategy as regards Ukraine, ratified by the Council of Europe in December 1999, became a significant step in establishing of relations between our country and the European Union.

Tendencies of development of strategic partnership were outlined by the fifth summit Ukraine — the EU, held in September 2001, and the EU's Plan of Actions in sphere of justice and internal affairs of Ukraine, accepted in December 2001.

Simultaneously, we maintained and improved mutually beneficial relations with Russia and the CIS countries; our contacts with countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe were also being developed actively. Ukraine's cooperation with the USA was also given due attention.

Today all these vectors of our foreign policy and economic activities should be subjected to our strategic goal — Ukraine's European integration. Therefore, extension of processes of Eurointegration, as well as development and strengthening of our strategic partnership with Russia (based on our countries' mutual interest in integration into the present European economic and cultural space) should constitute main trends of Ukraine's foreign policy. Balanced and full of confidence relations of strategic partnership with the USA will play an important role in strengthening of Ukraine's international positions.

By the way, the policy of reforming in Ukraine must be aimed at those institutional transformations which would allow our country to pretend to acquiring of a status of the EU's associated member, to the end of 2007, and to create real pre-conditions for Ukraine's accession to the EU, to 2011. The President emphasised this point in his Address to the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, and we support his position.

What is the interest of Ukrainian business in the European Union?

I think that the sphere of interests, which our business has in countries of the European Union, will extend proportionally to realisation of the reforms that we started. However, today we are ready to increase the export of our metallurgical industry product; both our agrarians and food producers are interested in Western European markets, too. Unfortunately, they meet with limitations, economic barriers, embargoes, etc very often.

Such EU's policy as regards Ukraine is impeding Eurointegration processes on the whole. The policy of double standards in interstate relations is a discourteous and non-constructive one. This is the point that I would advise the EU to change in their policy as regards Ukraine.