EU leaders set for tough table-talk with Ukraine
Friday, November 29, 2013 – Vilnius—The European Union told Ukraine on Thursday its rejection of a free-trade deal in favor of closer ties with Russia would risk its economic future, as EU leaders prepared for what is likely to be a fraught meeting with President Viktor Yanukovich.
Yanukovich was due to fly into the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in time for a dinner in honor of the Eastern Partnership, the EU’s four-year-old program of outreach to former Soviet states Including Ukraine.
He had been expected to sign a far-reaching free-trade and political association deal with the EU at the Vilnius summit, the result of years of negotiation.
But last week, following intense pressure from Moscow and growing concerns about Ukraine’s dire economic situation, Yanukovich announced he was not ready to sign the EU deal yet and would instead focus on reviving economic dialogue with Russia.
Speaking a few hours before Yanukovich was due to arrive, EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele warned Ukraine that its decision to walk away from the agreement could imperil its future.
Disputing Ukraine’s figures for the cost of upgrading its economic base to European standards, Fuele said: “The Ukrainian economy needs huge investments but these are not costs. They represent future income, more growth, more jobs and more wealth.”
“The only costs that I can see are the costs of inaction allowing more stagnation of the economy and risking the economic future and health of the country,” he told a business forum in Vilnius, adding that the EU offer remained on the table.
Yanukovich himself set the scene for a frosty encounter by dismissing the EU’s trade offer as “humiliating”. The 600 million euros ($800 million), or so, of support on offer was “candy in a pretty wrapper”, he said.
But his presence at the EU gathering – without signing the agreement – indicates he does not want to burn his bridges with the EU and leave his country’s economic future solely to Russia. His government says the suspension of the deal with the EU marks only a “pause” in moves to integrate Ukraine into the European mainstream.
He has accepted short-term support from Moscow, which supplies Ukraine half of its gas needs, without committing to Russia’s Customs Union with Kazakhstan and Belarus, and all the while keeping the EU within reach.
Defending Kyiv’s decision, First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov told the Vilnius forum: “The country cannot be ready for such serious decision (to sign) if the social-economic situation is not balanced.”
“No about-face has taken place. We are confidently moving towards an aim which we have set. Ukrainians need Europe and the European path is the only one for us,” he said.—Reuters