Why Do I Want My Country to Join NATO?

Five young Ukrainians will soon be visiting the NATO headquarters. This is the result of a contest of compositions titled “Why do I want my country to be a NATO member?” This competition was organized by the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, the newspaper Den/The Day, and the Safe Territory program (1st National TV Channel).

Our newspaper hosted the other day a session to choose “the best of the best” letters. The jury consisting of journalists and Michel Duray, director of the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, thoroughly scrutinized each of the contestants’ viewpoints. An author could only win if he/she enlisted support of all the contest partners. The organizers thus resorted to the NATO procedure whereby decisions are made by consensus. Ihor Rudych and Serhiy Cherevaty, who hit upon the idea of holding this competition, said that over sixty people from all Ukrainian regions had participated. A lot of letters came from the regions that are rarely referred to as supporters of Ukraine’s NATO membership, such as Luhansk, Donetsk, and Mykolayiv oblasts. Some contestants chose to express their “pro-NATO” attitude in quite an unconventional way — several letters were written in verses and one in the form of a fairy-tale.

The winners are Iryna Yershova (Cherkasy oblast), Olha Harkovenko (Luhansk oblast), Yevhen Ponomariov (cadet at Zhytomyr’s Military Institute of Electronics), Olena Malyshenko (Lviv oblast), and Vadym Kondtatiuk (Vinnytsia oblast). They will have an opportunity to test the viewpoints they expressed in letters “in practice”, i.e., during a visit to the NATO headquarters in Brussels. Another six contest finalists won honorable mention.

Michel DURAY, director of the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, courteously agreed to answer some of The Day’s questions about the contest as well as about Ukraine-NATO relations:

“We are sure it is very important to support youth, the future of Ukraine. It is important to help young people develop their knowledge. We are fully aware of the challenges that the contestants faced. NATO is an international organization which young people not always take a keen interest in. It is for this reason that we decided to be partners in this contest. I can describe my impressions as follows: the letters show interest, emotions and, undoubtedly, an attempt to win a trip to Brussels. This is why we took an unbiased approach to all the letters. I personally like it when young people say from the very beginning: ‘It is difficult, but it seems to me we need NATO membership’ and are able to present arguments in favor of their stance. We naturally preferred letters which did not just repeat what one can read on, say, the NATO website. We were interested in their own thoughts and vision. We are undoubtedly glad that this contest was held. We hope we will be able to take more actions of this kind in the future.”

“You have stayed in Ukraine for quite a long time. Whose ideas of NATO do you think are more adequate — those of young people or the political class?”

“A very interesting question. Naturally, there are political, strategic, and NATO-only arguments. But, as you know, NATO is an alliance of democracies, where a people decides on its future. For instance, the new NATO member states have held referendums on whether it is worth joining the organization; their parliaments have also voted on this problem. The role of people is very important. After reading these letters, I got a feeling that there was a certain movement towards improvement, greater stability, and European values. Love of the fatherland, not nationalism. Yet, some letters show sentiments against somebody, for example, against a certain country. I think it is wrong to think that a country should join NATO just to defy somebody else in the conditions of today, when terrorism presents a great challenge and threat for democracies, for our countries. When I say ‘our countries,’ I mean the Euro-Atlantic community, including Russia. It seems to me the attempt to build Ukraine’s future in defiance of a certain country results from insufficient information. The alliance will never support anti-Russian sentiments in Ukraine, nor will it ever support anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Russia. We are building a relationship with both countries. It is very important for us that people understand that the advantage of cooperation with NATO lies in stability, democratic development, and domestic transformation. NATO membership is not something negative.”

“Is NATO interested in the victory of a specific presidential candidate? Could you comment in this context on the following stereotype? Many experts and journalists allege that Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko are a pro-Russian and a pro-Western candidates, respectively.”

“What matters for us is the process. I am still repeating what the NATO secretary-general said during his visit to Kyiv. The result does not matter at all. This is your internal affair. All we are interested in is that the electoral process in Ukraine should unfold in the same way as it does in the NATO countries. Ukraine has announced an intention to join the alliance, i.e., it has shown readiness to hold the elections according to NATO standards. We are interested in the bright future of Ukraine. NATO is not an organization that deals with Ukraine’s domestic policies. It is an organization that is developing its relations with other states, including Ukraine. We are for strategic partnership, we have drawn up such documents as the Charter of Special Partnership, the Action Plan, and the Target-Oriented Plan. When you read these document, you will see that we do not interfere with your policies but we are offering our experience — both positive and negative. We have also been making mistakes, but we are ready to give explanations and share our experience, so that Ukraine does not repeat those mistakes. It is up to the Ukrainian people to swing the elections in somebody’s favor. When Ukraine is electing one candidate or another, it is the choice of common Ukrainians; when it is deciding whether to be a NATO member, it is also the choice of common Ukrainians, not only the officials.”