http://www.day.kiev.ua/178400/
“You can’t understand Ukraine without visiting the eastern part of the
country”
Days of Europe in Donbas
By Hanna KHRYPUNKOVA, The Day
People in Donetsk have finally been told what the European Union is and
what benefit Ukraine can derive from it. Last week Donetsk Oblast was
the venue of what may be called the unscheduled “days of Europe”: a
large number of European delegations and pro-European politicians
gathered in this coal- mining region to put across the idea that the
European Union may be of great benefit to Ukraine.
The series of visits began last Wednesday: that day the oblast welcomed
participants of the ninth session of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary
Cooperation Committee (PCC) which also held a special meeting in Donetsk
with representatives of several eastern Ukrainian regions. According to
Adrian Severin, PCC co-chairman and head of the European Parliament
division of the PCC, the main goal of the visit was to get to know each
other.
“Until now, we had the impression that the EU and the European
Parliament are not very well known in eastern Ukraine and, therefore,
not very welcome in your region. But we were wrong. We saw that these
were only rumors and that we did well by coming here and meeting
people,” he said. The delegates also visited a few leading businesses in
Donetsk for long talks. The next day Mykola Katerynchuk arrived. This
MP, who leads the political movement known as the European Platform in
Ukraine, also wanted to meet a few people. He visited some enterprises
and even went down into a coal mine to talk to some working people.
All the delegates said that their contacts with working people and the
grassroots were more important than those with local government
officials. “We want to avoid a schematic approach to our relations or a
cartoon-like description of Ukraine’s reality; we want to achieve
understanding in our relationship,” Severin emphasized.
Volodymyr Vecherko, the PCC co-chairman and head of the committee’s
Ukrainian part, said that the Donetsk region, as well as eastern Ukraine
in general, is “the talk of the town in many European political circles”
and that Ukraine with its cluster of diverse regions is interesting to
Europe. As Charles Tannock (UK), vice-president of the PCC delegation,
stressed, “You can’t understand Ukraine without visiting its eastern
regions.”
Katerynchuk only partly accepts this approach. He thinks that although
Donbas is truly of strategic importance to Ukraine, it is developing
one-sidedly because local people “are ‘zombified’ by rhetoric of a
certain kind; they don’t know about European living standards.” He added
that during an interactive live television show only 31 percent of
Donetsk residents favored joining the European Union. As for the
regional authorities, they find it very difficult to say something about
this issue: the oblast’s governor Volodymyr Lohvynenko says that it will
take a referendum at the very least to learn the true attitude of
Donetsk residents to Europe.
No matter what, all the visitors came to the same principal conclusion:
Europe and the European Union are the best friends and partners of
Ukraine, and they are always ready to take our country into their fold.
However, Ukraine will also have to make considerable efforts to this
end. According to the EU- Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee,
before trying to enter Europe, our country should place special emphasis
on investment cooperation and guaranteeing legal security for foreign
investors.
The delegates said that the European Union sees Ukraine as a “global
player” because, if it integrates into the EU, its “fantastic resources”
will be of even greater use. In Katerynchuk’s opinion, before
integrating into Europe, the Ukrainian government will have to resolve
all the urgent problems of raising living standards. Katerynchuk has his
own less pragmatic plans about Ukraine’s European integration: in his
view, the European idea should bring together the political elite and
the grassroots of our country and unite Ukrainians around European values.
As the Donbas “European hearings” proceeded, Ukraine was advised to send
more of its representatives to the EU, where they will learn to conduct
business “in the European style” and bring our laws in line with those
of EU countries and borrow work experience in many other fields. The
Ukrainian side responded by saying that it is ready to learn and borrow
Europe’s experience. But, as Ukrainian MP Vasyl Khara underlined,
Ukraine is looking on the EU not only as a friend and partner but also
as a rival. “You don’t need spongers. That is why we should make our
businesses ready to compete with friends so that we all have equal
opportunities,” he said.
Whatever the results, all the delegates were satisfied with their visit
to Donbas. The European delegation said that these contacts managed to
convince them that Donbas and other eastern regions do not have a
negative attitude to the EU and are prepared to cooperate with it and
later become a member with the rest of Ukraine. Katerynchuk added that
eastern Ukraine is not indifferent to the European idea, so it is
worthwhile advocating it here too.
It is generally clear that neither the European Union nor Ukrainian
politicians can predict exactly when our country will be ready to join
the EU. But even now a lot of European politicians are forecasting that
a new crucial phase in EU-Ukraine relations will emerge by the end of
2008, and then it will be realistic to speak about at least a membership
application. In Katerynchuk’s opinion, however, European integration
cannot materialize any earlier than 7 to 10 years from now. He says that
if early elections are called in Ukraine, they will speed up this
process, and to some extent the new elections may clean up Ukraine’s
political system, which will surely contribute to EU membership.
Katerynchuk also believes that Ukraine’s accession to NATO could also
speed up admission to the EU, but this issue is no longer on the agenda
in Ukraine because the North Atlantic alliance is no longer expecting us
to join; we have not even received a membership invitation.
In any case, many countries support Ukraine’s pro-European leanings. As
Charles Tannock noted, among these supporters are Poland, the Baltic
states, and even Brussels, where Ukraine now has “many friends.”
The program of the Days of Europe in Donbas also included a visit on
March 2-3 to the region by a delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe (PACE), headed by Renate Wohlwend and Hanne
Severinsen. They were also supposed to meet a number of civic and
political organizations in Donetsk to discuss Ukraine’s European prospects.
#8, Tuesday, 6 March 2007
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