In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the action

That’s how Ukraine is step­ping into the leap year 2012. What it will bring mankind, Europeans, Ukrai­nians, is any­one’s guess. One thing is certain: much will depend on us citizens of Ukraine, drivers of motor vehic­les, schoolteachers, surgeons, coal miners, ministers, tractor drivers, and of course diplomats whom I am honored to represent.

Ukraine is geographically in the center of Europe, as evidenced by a memo­rial sign near Rakhiv, a town in Zakarpattia (Transcarpathia). This country is increasingly actively asserting its place on a world political map. In 2011, proof of this was Ukraine’s six-month chairmanship of the Council of Europe and the completion of talks on the EU association agreement. Ukraine entered 2012 at the head of the Central European Initiative.

I regard this fact as a markedly symbolic one, considering that the CEI unites 18 countries, with one half being members of the European Union (e.g., Austria, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania) and the rest being Balkan and Eastern European countries, including Ukraine, that are at various stages of relations with Brussels. This outwardly motley membership is actually a unique mix of interests and aspirations. Countries seeking membership are being willingly aided by EU members. The latter share their experience. In other words, CEI is a model of a new Great Europe without frontiers and restrictions, a cherished dream of millions over decades, something hundreds of Old World diplomats have been working on.

Ukraine’s CEI chairmanship isn’t a matter of prestige or benefit, rather one of pragmatism as an opportunity of enhancing its European status and integration of institutional capacities while making its contribution to the rapprochement of societies, all the way from the Baltic to the Adriatic to the Black Sea, that vary in terms of territory, living standard, and the level of reform.

This is precisely the sentiment underscoring the three priorities of Ukrai­nian chairmanship: transport, tourism, and citizens’ mobility. These are outwardly different but actually interrelated fields of endeavor in each European country, on a common integration basis.

Transport means new highways, new routes/itineraries, with the attendant logistics; it means movement of goods and people; it means tourism and economic growth.

Tourism means an opportunity to familiarize oneself with new cultures, new values; it means a fresh impetus to the hotel, restaurant, and resort businesses; it means new itineraries and economic growth.

Citizens’ mobility means visa-free treatment of CEI nationals; it means a fresh impetus to transport and tourism, as well as economic growth.

Put together, these three priorities will help stage the Europe’s number-one sports event, the 2012 soccer champion­ships, in Ukraine and Poland on a high [professional] level.

In order to implement these priorities, an organizing chairmanship committee was established in Ukraine, presided over by the foreign minister, involving officials in charge of various government agencies having to do with this organization. In carrying out its mission, CEI focuses on such general European problems as energy saving, modern agribusiness, science, techno­logy, education, culture, protection of the environment, and so on. CEI urges the member countries, their government institutions, NGOs, local autho­rities to submit projects in these domains. It supports them on a co-funding basis. Each such project should meet certain requirements: European standard, the largest possible number of participants from CEI countries, and implementability appraisal by experts. With this in mind, boards of experts have been formed in every member country, in regard to each such field of endeavor. These boards are tasked with selecting dozens of winners from among hundreds of projects submitted.

These projects are vitally important and applied ones, concerning the usage of wind power in Macedonia to supply electricity to remote highland villages; water treatment facilities for the rivers flowing into the Vistula without stopping important production projects in Poland; how to use European expe­rience in instituting land registry in Ukraine. Some local-scale projects receive tens of thousands of euros from CEI, while others, like the one aimed at studying the possibilities of modern agribusiness in Ukraine, spell hundreds of thousands and more. CEI recently adopted a project entitled “Review of Sustainable Farming Practices in the Agriculture Sector” commissioned by Ukrainian producers in collaboration with the EBRD. Findings on [each such CEI] project will serve as a basis for subsequent arrangements for loans worth hundreds of millions [of euros] that will be provided by the Bank of Ukraine, allowing [the domestic producers] to supply quality competitive goods to the most demanding markets.

Ukraine badly needs this opportunity. After five years of complicated talks on EU association and free trade area agreement, the Ukrainian diplomats have succeeded in obtaining large supply quotas in terms of Ukrainian milk, eggs, wheat, beans, meat, and barley. Now it is our producers’ turn. They need modern equipment, seed varieties, and technologies that will be funded using EBRD loans at the world’s smallest interest. It is thus an outwardly small step forward, taken by Ukraine within the CEI framework, will help raise a whole vitally important domestic industry to the integration level.

While chairing [the CEI], Ukraine will organize a number of important events: a meeting of CEI transport ministers in May; a top-level forum on tourism in March; a meeting of CEI finance ministers in the course of which our CEI colleagues will seek solutions to their professional problems. Important intersectoral arrangements will be made. There will also be a film festival and a winemakers’ workshop seminar. There will be a traditional meeting of science and technology ministers in Trieste, Italy, with its five major European centers dealing with va­rious spheres of modern knowledge. CEI Parliamentary Assembly will remain its usual active self, holding sessions in Kyiv, in April and September.

The meeting of CEI foreign ministers in May will focus on the adoption of an action plan for the next three years (2013-15), with Ukraine being respon­sible for the draft text. Traditionally, Ukraine’s chairmanship results will be summed up toward the end of year, during a CEI summit and a CEI business forum that will be held in conjunction with the summit. Ukraine will be appraised as an organizer of interaction within a large family of Central European nations – ranging from Belarus to Montenegro to Italy to Moldova – during the year. Ukraine will also assess its performance in carrying out this mind-boggling duty as a multidimensional center of Europe; whether it had made another step in the direction of integration with Europe.

This assessment will have to be quick and accurate, considering Ukraine’s tight schedule: come September 1, 2013, this country will preside over the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, this largest and most prestigious pan-European body. A difficult task? Probably. A big responsibility? Certainly. There is no other way to remain in the center of Europe.

Kostiantyn Hryshchenko is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine