UEFA in Ukraine: European politicians deserve yellow cards
Ky Krauthamer is a senior editor at Transitions Online in Prague. This commentary first appeared here.
It’s never been clear to me just what Europe’s ‘boycott‘ of Euro 2012 is for. What ill deed is it meant to flag up? Is it the conviction and imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko? Her medical treatment in prison? Or the ‘overall human rights situation’?
Nor is it clear to me why a football tournament is the best peg on which to hang Europe’s gripes about Ukraine. Sporting boycotts have not worked all that well in the past, with the partial exception of the ban on sporting visits to apartheid-era South Africa, and that was a matter of years, not weeks. Crucially, it was a matter of restricting the freedom of competitors to work, and earn money, in South Africa.
Because what Angela Merkel and others are suggesting is far less extreme than ordering athletes not to attend a sporting event. All they are threatening to do is stay home in a huff as the teams take part in what should be a glorious festival of football.
In the absence of Merkel, José Manuel Barroso, Vaclav Klaus and other European leaders, we fans might even be spared those TV shots of stone-faced leaders fidgeting in their seats, waiting for the damn game to end so they can get back to the business of ruling the world. Euro 2012 without Herman Van Rompuy? We’re heartbroken.
Some of the same bunch that is threatening to stay away from Ukraine skipped the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008 to protest against the Chinese crackdown in Tibet. And so did Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk – who’s now calling the German-led stay-away from Ukraine ‘inappropriate,’ precisely the word he used to explain why he decided to skip Beijing.
He went on, “I can understand the politicians who sympathise with Yulia Tymoshenko, but nothing stands in their way to express this sympathy in a clear way during the championships.”
Right on, Don. In fact, if European statesmen and -women really want to make Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich dance to their tune, a much more effective instrument is at hand. If you want all the financial goodies attached to the Eastern Neighbourhood Programme, they could say, show us the legislation that will bar any future politically motivated prosecutions like those aimed at Tymoshenko and Yuri Lutsenko. If you want a free trade agreement, show us that you are cracking down on cops who torture suspects and prove you are serious about solving the killing of Georgiy Gongadze.
Rather than staying way from Ukraine to no point (except to mollify their own domestic critics), Merkel, Barroso and the rest should use the very real powers they have to hit Kyiv where it really hurts.
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 6]