Ukraine and the role of the European Union
Iryna Chupryna October 5th, 2008
The EU-Ukraine summit in September became another defeat of Ukraine’s democracy, after the April NATO Summit in Bucharest. This summit failed to give Ukraine any clear perspective, even in the remote future. While Ukraine expected to conclude an association agreement already this year, this issue was postponed for a year. It has been rumoured that recent political turmoil in Ukraine, namely the collapse of the ruling coalition and the threat of another snap parliamentary election, contributed to the EU’s reluctance to open a door for Ukraine. But the EU fails to realize that it has enough leverage to help Ukraine on its hard way on the consolidation of democracy. Namely, in contrast to NATO integration of Ukraine, which is supported less by the half of Ukrainians, the idea of European integration is supported by a majority. So the European Union has a strong potential of unifying Ukraine, providing the unity of purpose for policy. The passive attitude of the EU to Ukraine might backfire with the setback of democracy and the growth of Russian influence in that Eastern European state.
After the collapse of the ruling coalition in early September the situation in Ukraine remains unsettled. Even if it manages to return to the previous coalition format and to avoid new elections, the coalition between the Our Ukraine and BYuT would be very fragile, with a very slight majority over the opposition. The fact is that Ukraine is a divided country in linguistic, cultural, and socio-political aspects. It looks like the way out of the impasse for Ukraine would be a pan-Ukrainian coalition uniting pragmatic politicians of both pro-Russian and pro-Western political forces who would put aside divisive issues and focus on the economy, public administration, the fight against corruption and similar issues. A number of politicians such as Yatseniuk, Yekhanurov, Grytsenko hopefully will be able to push through a political project of that type. Arseniy Yatseniuk, parliament’s speaker, has already announced his plans to launch a new political project.
