President Obama in Warsaw: The importance of political gestures

The visit of a US president always gives rise to a lot of comments. Observers analyze the gestures, the conversations and their length, and quickly draw political conclusions. In this sense Barack Obama’s recent visit to Warsaw was no different. It is important that the US president came to this part of Europe, as looking at American global policy it may seem that Europe, and more specifically Central and Eastern Europe, has not been a priority for some time.

The visit began with a significant event, i.e. the meeting of Central European heads of state — an annual forum that was born in 1996 when Aleksander Kwasniewski invited Leonid Kuchma to Lancut in Poland. Since then it has been held in different places with the participation of Ukraine’s successive presidents. When you gather around one table the presidents of very different countries such as Germany, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, or even Kosovo (still not recognized by some EU countries), you might ask yourself what exactly they have in common, what is the common denominator that has brought them together? Certainly, despite their differences, they share one thing: they are working to promote and implement the project of building demo-cracy in their own countries.

The US president was invited to learn about the different visions of the democracy building process and to find out how the East European states can help in making the current transformations in North Africa more democratic. Poland rightly believes that countries that underwent the arduous journey from communist dictatorship to democracy can effectively share their experiences with Tunisia, Egypt and perhaps other North African countries.

It was interesting to see that although the Ukrainian president was but one of the many guests, he nonetheless had an individual conversation with his American counterpart and their cordial greetings were accompanied by gestures. Does this mean that everything is perfect in Ukraine?

Not everyone who speaks about the condition of democracy and freedom should critically analyze the achievements of his own country. I believe that the Ukrainian president convinced the host of the meeting, as well as the American president, that the democratization process in Ukraine is moving in the right direction. Yanukovych was probably told that if the former prime minister and ministers are sent to jail or accused of graft, then the evidence backing this up must be solid so as to avoid any suspicion that the legal procedures are being used for political purposes. In conclusion: America wants to highlight its presence among the countries which it supported during their accession to the EU and where it has been promoting freedom, tolerance and human rights over the last 20 years.