What does the "Eastern Partnership" mean for Kiev?

By Vestnik Kavkaza

At the summit of "Eastern Partnership," which ended on Saturday, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych said that Kiev and the European Union should develop a program of economic assistance to enable the Ukrainian authorities to prepare for the signing of an association agreement with the EU. The agreement was not signed, which caused a new surge of indignation among the opposition in Kiev. All weekend, clashes between the police and demonstrators supporting the speedy European integration of Ukraine continued . Groups of people from the parties"All-Ukrainian Union "Freedom"and "All-Ukrainian Union" Motherland" seized House of Trade Unions in Kiev; protesters using a tractor attacked police officers who blocked the approach to the presidential administration, the supporters of European integration stormed the Kiev city administration, but the authorities have not yet established a state of emergency.

Oleg Noginskiy, chairman of the association "Suppliers of the Customs Union", assessed the situation as follows: “There is no "Maidan" of 2004 nor of 2006 when people were standing around the clock, when indeed there was a sincere desire to receive, so to speak, access to power, access to changing the course and asserting one's rights at elections. The reason is that at the time there were elections and people felt that their rights have been violated. Now there are no elections, there was a suggestion that in fact, unfortunately, split the country, because all opinion polls show that 40 % support the EU and 40% the Customs Union, these surveys are confirmed by Deutsche Welle, as well as Western and domestic parties. It means that in fact we have half of the country moving in one direction and the other half in another direction. Therefore, from this point of view, postponing the signing the association agreement was unequivocally positive”.

Noginskiy does not agree that the EU will facilitate the development of small and medium business: “Probably it will and in the country only those traders who are going to sell products of the European Union in the country. And not for a long time, right until money remains in the country. Let's recall Egypt, 2004 is the signing of the association. In 2008 all businesses were closed and the youth demanded "Give us jobs!" The Tahrir Square began not with democratic demands but with demands like "Give us jobs!" We do not want to work as waiters, we do not want to be sales people, we want to work. No enterprises remained since in fact cheap rather good quality European goods completely pushed out the local producer. In 4 years it ended. The bottom line? Egypt today is in crisis and for the first time in the last 20 years it asks for a loan from the IMF, which never happened in the 20 years that they were implementing their policy previously, aimed at the state. As for Ukraine, the signing of the association agreement could lead to the loss of about 800,000 jobs, from 800,000 to 1.5 million in large enterprises”.

“Virtually all of our small and medium businesses do not pay attention to the fact that they mainly work in retail, or as subcontractors for large plants. In fact, the closing of large factories would result in small and medium business ceasing their activities. The amount of deliveries of products of small and medium-sized businesses to the EU at the moment is ridiculous - 1% of the total export capacity”, he said.

Valery Muntiyan, government commissioner for cooperation with Russia and the CIS states, thinks that Ukraine is integrated into the global economy, and closing one or another market – the EU or the CU – is simply unacceptable: “The choice is not to oppose these two markets, but to find a useful mechanism, a tool to make them interact. Now what happens. In order to get the integration effect, the trade turnover with the countries should be no less than 28 %. The EU market is 29.6%, almost 30%. The effect will definitely follow. But as for the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space, there is a different proportion, a better one, there is 38% and 62%. That is, we will get a clear economic benefit. Theory demonstrates that. Now in practice. By the amount of trade, as I said, the market is structure. Based on the structure, it is also beneficial for us, because basically the market for a significant portion of products, which has an added value as a result of processing, is the Customs Union”.

Oleg Bondarenko, executive director of the Russian-Ukrainian information center, thinks that Ukraine is blackmailed both by the EU and by Moscow: “Brussels has slightly forgotten or does not talk so much anymore about Yulia Tymoshenko. If earlier it was the number one problem, now the conversation focuses on whether Europe will give Ukraine the money, and Tymoshenko seems to have been forgotten. What is happening on the Maidan... At the moment I do not want to analyze who pays and to whom, alas, Ukrainian politics functions in a way that almost all protests have a financial, commercial foundation. There is already an entire battalion of people who work professionally in this sense in the government as well as in the opposition. The problem is that, these "Maidans" even if today they have only several hundreds if not dozens of people, can certainly acquire external support from the West and in this regard, in my opinion, one will have to watch the reaction of Washington and not of Brussels”.

Bondarenko recalled the year of 2009, the NATO summit in Bucharest, when at the last moment the signing of an action plan for Ukraine's membership in NATO failed: “Once again we are in a similar situation, but not in relation to NATO, and with regard to Ukraine and the European Union. I do not know how many more years will pass, but we must understand that the president who will come after Viktor Yanukovych, and most likely it will happen in 2015, to put it mildly, will not be pro-Russian. One has to understand how to interact with him and with the Ukrainian elite. The fact is that the today's elite of Donbass, this so-called new team of young reformers are not at all "Galicians," they are not at all people of some different culture, they are not Bandera followers, no, these are the people of Russian culture, Russian-speaking people, who today appear to be supporters of European integration rather than those ideological "Galicians" who were active in the days of Yushchenko. I think it is something to reflect upon. These high risks that have been associated with Ukraine in the recent years are, in my opinion, based on a very low level of trust between Moscow and Brussels, between the Russian Federation and the European Union. As long as we do not have a clear, pragmatic, but positive agenda in relations between Russia and Europe, as long as it is absent, we will not be able to solve our problems with the transit countries. In principle, in order to have good relations with Kiev, Belarus, Belgrade and with a large number of other states which are located between us and Europe, which are both Europe and Eurasia, we must build clearly defined relations with Brussels, Paris, Berlin and these relations should be, of course, at a high level, they should be partnerships. In this regard, we need to do something that Russia, in my opinion, alas, does not engage in, something that Ukraine does. What we need is our own lobbying in Europe, our own lobbying in the European Commission. In June of the next year there will be elections to the European Parliament. Do you know, dear colleagues, the extent of friendship groups between, for example, the European Union and Azerbaijan or the European Union and Iran? Powerful interest groups are working there, millions of euros are invested in creating a positive image. Russia does not do anything in this regard“.

Vladimir Zharikhin, Deputy Director of the CIS Countries Institute, on the contrary, thinks that the Eastern Partnership is doomed to fail: “When Ukraine initialed the agreement 1.5 years ago, it was not discussed even in media resources. So it is not news. As for the Eastern Partnership, its golden age and discussion of the program is connected only with Ukraine. When Ukraine decided to take a break, the content of the Eastern Partnership’s activity, which is actually an initiative and enthusiasm of Poland and Sweden, it seems they cannot forgive Russia its historic victories, I think the project will slowly fade away and die”.

Meanwhile, the Polish Foreign Ministry summoned the Ambassador of Ukraine for an explanation for the recent events in Kiev. Poland condemns not only the beating of Polish citizens on Saturday night , but in general the use of force against peaceful protesters in Kiev. Meanwhile, over a hundred buses and cars started off from Lvov to Kiev. Several dozen cars went to Kiev from Vinnytsia, Lutsk, Zhitomir. A convoy of 50 trucks left Ivano-Frankivsk. As a result, the Regional Administrative Court of Kiev decided to ban the holding of mass rallies in Kiev from December 1 to December 7. The ban did not work...