Valerii CHALY: “The window of opportunity for Ukraine, including the signing of the Association Agreement, remains open”
Recently, the European Parliament has held the third debate on Ukraine. The reason to hold it was the latest events in Ukrainian politics, in particular, the withdrawal of mandate from Serhii Vlasenko. By the way, he had to fly to that meeting, but Ukrainian border guards refused to let him out of the country.
In his speech at the plenary session the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fuele, who is constantly in contact with the Ukrainian authorities, also mentioned the Decree of the Ukrainian president “On Urgent Measures for the European Integration of Ukraine” passed the day before the meeting took place. “Kyiv has commitment to achieve its goals,” Interfax quoted Fuele. At the same time, the European Commissioner also drew attention to the importance of unblocking the parliament so that “this democratic institution would start operating transparently and predictably.”
Fuele stressed that cases of Yulia Tymoshenko and Yurii Lutsenko should be solved properly, otherwise the EU will have its doubts about selective prosecution in Ukraine.
In an interview to The Day Marek Siwiec, Member of the European Parliament, said that these debates indicate the fact that “there is no significant progress towards a positive outcome of the Vilnius Summit,” where Kyiv hopes to sing the Association Agreement with the EU. Mr. Siwiec also added that Europeans have few expectations of Kyiv, which it does not fulfill. “It is all about selective justice. I think it is clear for the Ukrainian side that substantial changes should be made in this sphere,” said the MEP.
COMMENTARY
Valerii CHALY, deputy director of the Razumkov Center:
“Debates that have been held in the European Parliament for the third time showed the current attention to Ukraine from the European institutions (both executive and legislative), and that the window of opportunity for Ukraine, including the signing of the Association Agreement, remains open. The debates initiated by the European People’s Party, were a response to the concern of Europe after the new cases of applying selective justice in Ukraine. Obviously, the debate had to give a signal in the European institutions on how to approach such actions. Therefore, everyone will have his own impression from the debate and will draw his own conclusions. No resolutions were adopted that could outline the common position. That’s why, of course the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine found in this debate exclusively positive sides and a signal for getting the Association Agreement ready for signing. Ukrainian Opposition saw active criticism of what happened to MP Vlasenko lately, the fact of depriving him of parliamentary powers. This was also mentioned in the European Parliament.
“In my opinion, the debate has not really put an end to all the discussions, but was rather another intermediate deliberation, message of Brussels and Strasbourg to Ukrainian leaders.
“To tell the truth, the way the debate was held and its outcome caused a question: is there really a need to hold them at all? Perhaps, it was more needed for the EU itself, since European Commissioner Stefan Fuele, who is very active in supporting the prospect of signing the Agreement with Ukraine, wanted to receive feedback from the parliamentarians. In fact, this is what happened. Final message would sound as follows: Association Agreement is an important element of cooperation between Ukraine and European Union. Secondly, it would be very difficult to talk about real integration in case if selective justice is continued to be applied. Thirdly, he [Fuele. – Ed.] still expects positive signals from Kyiv.”
