Traits of Partnership

The week before last we were assured that the relationship between the European Union and Ukraine is good by President Kuchma, Secretary General of the EU Council Solana, and President of the German Foreign Policy Society Genscher. Diplomats always say this and maybe even want to believe it themselves.

There is one small detail introducing some skepticism in such unbounded optimism. It has been announced that Denmark is closing its embassy in Ukraine since the country’s government has approved a program to cut expenditures. First, this happened a few months before Denmark is to head the European Union, and accordingly it will be its representatives who will deal with all the issues of Ukraine-EU relations. Second, it appears that Ukraine is far from being all that an important, interesting, prospective, and partner state as the official statements say.

The question is not that Ukraine had not in the ten years of its independence proved by its actions that it deserves better. This is true enough. Though Ukraine will not have to “go to Europe,” since this is where it is situated, it will have to pass through a test on being European under the circumstances that from the very beginning nobody is offering it anything concrete. State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Chaly stated that the next two or three years will be decisive for Ukraine in terms of its relations with the European structures, which is probably true.

It is also true that you do not close your embassies in your real partner countries. You do not fence yourself off from your partners with harsh and often absurd visa regimes, referring to the Schengen restrictions (in this case mythical); you don’t tell your partners that they should be satisfied with the fact that you have signed any agreement at all with them. You can and must tell your partners that they should carry out major reforms. However, your partners have a right to know what your real policy toward them is, what it could be under other circumstances (and exactly under which ones), what they can count on (and again, under what conditions), and what they cannot under any conditions. You tell your partners such things honestly, if only not to provoke false hopes. This is, of course, an ideal case. It is hard but possible to answer all the necessary criteria, and this would in any case do good to Ukraine itself. But it is both hard and impossible to speak about European integration when you have only unknowns in your equation.