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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Roy REEVE: "NATO does not want to be a world policeman" 

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Interviewed by The Day's Larysa IVSHYNA,
Natalia VIKULINA, Liudmyla HUMENIUK, James MACE, Oleksa PIDLUTSKY, Valentyn
PUSTOVOIT

British Ambassador to Ukraine Roy Reeve at a press conference organised
by the ambassadors of NATO member states in Kyiv disagreed with The
Day's assumption that it was the NATO bombardment that triggered off
a human disaster in Kosovo. Mr. Reeve believes that Slobodan Milosevic's
administration began large-scale genocide against the Albanians on March
19 and that NATO air raids were not the cause but a response. He sternly
assured those present that Milosevic will not be able to take any advantage
of this humanitarian disaster, and nor shall he benefit from it in any
way, adding that all are convinced that the refugees will eventually return
home.

The British Ambassador kindly agreed to join The Day's roundtable
and enlarged on the Kosovo crisis. Mr. Reeves also shared his views on
British-Ukrainian relations.

Q.: Could more diplomatic efforts have been exerted to prevent the
usage of military force in the Balkan conflict? It's best to have old diplomats
bored than young soldiers getting killed, isn't it?

A.: No one wanted military action in the Republic of Yugoslavia.
It is not an action against the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, not an action
against the people of Yugoslavia. Members of the Contact Group have been
working for well over a year now, trying to find a peaceful resolution
of the situation resulting out of Kosovo. Those efforts have been backed
by three UN Security Council resolutions expressing the wish to find a
peaceful settlement. After warnings, when the Yugoslavian delegation failed
to negotiate seriously, then we implemented those threats. The reason,
I think, that we take this case so seriously and so differently is that
it's happening in the middle of Europe at the end of this century. All
the nations of Europe have vivid memories of how just over fifty years
ago the same kind of brutal dictatorship and oppression of people led us
into World War II. And we just can't accept this kind of behaviour in Europe
now.

Q.: Many analysts across the world believe that March 1999 was a
turning point in the history of mankind. Despite all the evidence of genocide
against the Albanians, the military operation was started without the UN
Security Council's consent. Does this mean that NATO might assume the same
responsibility in other cases of genocide?

A.: We can all sit down and produce lots of examples of what
seem to be double standards of NATO's position or other countries' position:
Turkey, Chechnya, Northern Ireland, the Crimea... It's an interesting academic
debate, but we are dealing with the situation we are now facing. We are
fully available to defend our position anywhere in the world, be it in
the UN or wherever it is. So if people do think we are acting differently
in one respect or another, all the leaders of democratic opinion and the
International Court of Justice are available to them to tell us the error
of our ways.

What we consider is happening in Yugoslavia at the moment is medieval
in terms of cleaning out one part of the population. What we don't accept,
which comes from medieval days, is that might is right, and if we are wrong
we expect to be brought to account.

Q.: Why is the revival of Ukraine in the interests of pragmatic Great
Britain?

A.: It goes back 900 years if you want to start from the beginning,
when a member of the British royal family married into the Ukrainian royal
family. So, you have been in our memories for a long time. Potentially
Ukraine could be an enormous market for joint economic trade and investment.
In political, military and security terms Ukraine is geographically in
the centre of Europe and a country to which should be paid great attention.
Since independence the Ukrainian government has chosen to adopt the policy
of integration into European transatlantic structures, and we are happy
to assist her. In terms of our military co-operation, ministries of defence
to ministries of defence, this is the biggest program British Government
has anywhere in the world.

Q.: If we are so important, why is British business less active in
Ukraine than, say, German or Dutch?

A.: The level of our trade is not insignificant, but it is nowhere
near the potential. British investment, financial investment, in your country
is less then 10% of our investment in a country, say, like Hungary. That
is not because British businessmen, British investors, are not interested
in Ukraine. To the contrary, they are extremely interested. There are major
multinational British companies who would be delighted to invest tens of
billions pounds into Ukraine. But they don't. Why? Because the legal structures
of Ukraine are not yet sufficiently comfortable for British companies.
They are faced by an amazing array of bureaucratic obstacles, of questions
of standardisation and corruption. So, they are not running to invest in
Ukraine. Until the legal structures change, until this is an environment
where British companies can be comfortable, they will look but they will
not touch. It's one of the biggest disappointments of my four years in
Kyiv. I was doing a road show in Britain two weeks ago talking to British
companies about investment and trade opportunities in Ukraine. And the
message was consistent: yes, they're extremely interested, because this
could be one of the most successful economies in Europe, without question.
But not yet. And the British government can only assess the situation,
but individual countries themselves have to decide whether they will come
to Ukraine. The one message is that unless Ukraine gets its act together
soon, concerning investment from major British companies, it would be too
late because there are a lot of places easier to work in. It's not a question
of British companies, major British investors, wanting special privileges,
special packets. We want an open field, where we all understand the rules.
That's not available here.

Q.: The Ukrainian-Russian AN-70 cargo plane, believed by many experts
to be the world's best, is now struggling to win its place on the international
market, particularly in NATO countries. How would you describe its prospects
in Great Britain?

A.: It is going to have to stand in competition with other similar
aircraft as far as we're concerned. British defence forces have a requirement
for a large heavy-lift aircraft very quickly. The process is in the final
round of selection for that particular requirement. In the longer range,
NATO as an organisation will require a heavy-lift aircraft, not necessarily
for military purposes but also for humanitarian purposes. That competition
is wide open; there's a lot of competition for that contract. That will
be decided on technical, cost, availability type issues, and it's a normal
commercial tender. As far as Ukraine is concerned one critical factor is
the free availability of spare parts when they're wanted. I should say
I discussed this with the management of the Kharkiv factory, and one of
the big problems that Ukraine has in the world at the moment is that it
doesn't have large stocks of spare parts outside Ukraine.

Q.: How does the British man in the street respond to the word Ukraine,
except Chornobyl and Kyiv Dynamo?

A.: You missed one - the Crimean War. It's not just a question
of monuments to the Crimean War, a number of words associated with that
campaign are in common use in the British language: balaclava, which means
a knitted hat which we wear in cold weather; cardigan, an item of clothing,
which is named after the commander of British forces in that campaign.
We've made a slight increase in this by sending the Ukrainian Cossacks
to the big military tattoo in London, and so they know about Cossacks.
But at the end of the day this is a problem for the Ukrainian Embassy in
London, not British Embassy in Ukraine.

Q.: Like the Soviet Union, Great Britain had a huge colonial empire.
For you the mechanism of civilised divorce was the British Commonwealth,
for us, the Commonwealth of Independent States. Do you think we could use
your experience in making progressive reforms in our post-Soviet community?

A.: The British Commonwealth came about because the independence
of each of its members was something which we negotiated over a period
of time, and as the Оmpire withdrew we negotiated the democratic political
structures of the Commonwealth countries. The Soviet Union disappeared
virtually in the space of a few months. We had several years think this
thing through. This is a major difference. There are no obligations for
membership in the Commonwealth, people freely join, and as they are no
longer interested they can freely leave. So there are no formal structures.
It has become an extremely useful organisation in that its membership now
is almost 20% of the world's population. Incidentally, it's no longer called
British. It covers all continents. Once a year we have a heads of Commonwealth
meeting to sit down and talk about a whole range of issues. So, it's voluntary
and unstructured. If Russia wants to learn a lesson from that, I think
that those are the two big key lessons.

Q.: if suddenly Ukraine applied for associate membership in the European
Union, what would be the reaction?

A.: Associate membership opens up your market. The Ukrainian
market could not survive even to the limited extent it would be opened
up by associate membership. We care too much about you to let you make
that mistake too soon. It took Austria fifteen years to get itself ready
for full membership in the EU, and Austria was starting with very different
base than Ukraine is starting from. At the political level our relationship
is good, close and Ukraine has certainly made no secret of its strategy
and ambitions. One of the great paradoxes to me is that Ukraine is so competent
and successful in foreign policy. I just wish it were so competent and
successful in its internal policies.

 

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