Once again, Europe condemned infringement of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, demonstrated support of democratization and reforms. However, it didn’t bring any joy by answering the question regarding the EU membership. Decision on non-visa regime was postponed and there will be no peacemakers in Donbass for sure.
The EU membership prospects for Ukraine
On April 27, Kiev hosted summit “Ukraine – EU”. The president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the chairman of the European Council Donald Tusk represented the European Union. The president Petro Poroshenko represented Ukraine. The negotiations didn’t bring any specific results. The leaders of the European Union expressed dissatisfaction regarding the slow pace of reforms realization. Ukraine demonstrated inability to process negotiations with European partners once again. Instead of building constructive and pragmatic relations, Kiev only continued to make loud promises and ask Brussels for help.
The Ukrainian president called the EU to support the Ukrainian nation on its way to the European integration and added that Ukraine does everything to become part of the European Union. “The EU membership prospect is the strategic orienting point of our aspirations for transformation. This is the crucial goal, for the sake of which reforms are implemented, this is the crucial goal of our program “Strategy-2020″ and the convincing support of this course by citizens is constantly proved by public opinion polls,” Poroshenko assured.
Of course, European leaders supported aspiration of Ukraine to join the European community but focused attention on the fact that Ukraine should be committed to assumed obligations regarding implementations of reforms, in order to finally change the situation inside of the state.
The president of the European Commission was rather pessimistic when having stated that “Europeans were convinced that there was no need to hold the summit, because Ukraine is not prospective for the EU in the future.” Although he softened a bit later on and agreed that Ukraine is still part of the “European family”. “We understand desire of Ukraine to become member of the EU, and this is why we are here. I would like to say that Ukraine has always been member of the European family. Although Ukraine isn’t a member of the EU, it is relative in our European family,” Jean-Claude Juncker said.
The head of the European Council Donald Tusk paid attention to the fact that support of the West is important, but Ukrainians themselves have to change Ukraine. “You have a powerful enemy, but at the same time you have many friends. You can expect their help. But it won’t be enough, if you don’t change Ukraine,” he emphasized.
Visa issue
Issue of the none-visa regime was supposed to be another subject of the negotiations between Ukraine and the European Union. However, this issue hasn’t sounded. Prior, the EU put on hold implementation of the none-visa regime with Ukraine.
The head of Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pavel Klimkin commented on this decision that the EU is afraid of possible increase of illegal migrants’ number. “I would like to emphasize that presently the EU has certain apprehension regarding the number of the ones from Donetsk ad Lugansk… it bewares additional migration pressure,” the minister said.
In his turn, the president of Ukraine Petr Poroshenko announced that the situation in Donbass cannot prevent implementation of the none-visa regime and emphasized that those negotiations should be “clear, sincere, and constructive”.
The European politicians were very careful with their pronouncements regarding this subject, they avoided any specific dates, but they announced traditionally that they support intentions of the Ukrainian side.
Military presence of Europe
Ukraine continues to insist on bringing of military peacekeeping contingent to the eastern regions of Ukraine. This issue was also raised during the Kiev summit. Again Petr Poroshenko asked European leaders to support this initiative.
“Within the frames of our meeting I raised the issue of the European Union mission deployment as part of the common policy of safety and defense that will help to create the proper security environment for adherence of the Minsk agreements. We call the EU member states to help us with realization of this initiative,” Poroshenko said.
However, Europe continues to hope for the “shaky peace” that was established by the Minsk agreements and holds off from the military participation in the conflict. This time the Europeans were more categorical and stated that military presence is a no-no and offered a civilian mission instead.
“We know that Ukraine counts on help of the EU member states’ peacemakers in Donbass. However, presently we consider possibility of sending a civilian estimation mission to Ukraine in order to estimate possibilities for the future activity within the boundaries of the safety and defense policy. A military mission is not even discussed,” Tusk emphasized.
Once again the summit “Ukraine – EU” demonstrated that Ukraine will have to drag itself out the hole it has gotten into. Europe agrees to help, providing political and economic support. Europe supports our aspirations on the way towards the safe, democratic state. But nobody would do our job instead of us in no uncertain terms.
Andrei Trutenko
