“You can’t understand Ukraine without visiting the eastern part of the country”

People in Donetsk have finally been told what the European Union is and what benefit Ukraine can derive from it. Last week Donetsk Oblast was the venue of what may be called the unscheduled “days of Europe”: a large number of European delegations and pro-European politicians gathered in this coal- mining region to put across the idea that the European Union may be of great benefit to Ukraine.

The series of visits began last Wednesday: that day the oblast welcomed participants of the ninth session of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (PCC) which also held a special meeting in Donetsk with representatives of several eastern Ukrainian regions. According to Adrian Severin, PCC co-chairman and head of the European Parliament division of the PCC, the main goal of the visit was to get to know each other.

“Until now, we had the impression that the EU and the European Parliament are not very well known in eastern Ukraine and, therefore, not very welcome in your region. But we were wrong. We saw that these were only rumors and that we did well by coming here and meeting people,” he said. The delegates also visited a few leading businesses in Donetsk for long talks. The next day Mykola Katerynchuk arrived. This MP, who leads the political movement known as the European Platform in Ukraine, also wanted to meet a few people. He visited some enterprises and even went down into a coal mine to talk to some working people.

All the delegates said that their contacts with working people and the grassroots were more important than those with local government officials. “We want to avoid a schematic approach to our relations or a cartoon-like description of Ukraine’s reality; we want to achieve understanding in our relationship,” Severin emphasized.

Volodymyr Vecherko, the PCC co-chairman and head of the committee’s Ukrainian part, said that the Donetsk region, as well as eastern Ukraine in general, is “the talk of the town in many European political circles” and that Ukraine with its cluster of diverse regions is interesting to Europe. As Charles Tannock (UK), vice-president of the PCC delegation, stressed, “You can’t understand Ukraine without visiting its eastern regions.”

Katerynchuk only partly accepts this approach. He thinks that although Donbas is truly of strategic importance to Ukraine, it is developing one-sidedly because local people “are ‘zombified’ by rhetoric of a certain kind; they don’t know about European living standards.” He added that during an interactive live television show only 31 percent of Donetsk residents favored joining the European Union. As for the regional authorities, they find it very difficult to say something about this issue: the oblast’s governor Volodymyr Lohvynenko says that it will take a referendum at the very least to learn the true attitude of Donetsk residents to Europe.

No matter what, all the visitors came to the same principal conclusion: Europe and the European Union are the best friends and partners of Ukraine, and they are always ready to take our country into their fold. However, Ukraine will also have to make considerable efforts to this end. According to the EU- Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, before trying to enter Europe, our country should place special emphasis on investment cooperation and guaranteeing legal security for foreign investors.

The delegates said that the European Union sees Ukraine as a “global player” because, if it integrates into the EU, its “fantastic resources” will be of even greater use. In Katerynchuk’s opinion, before integrating into Europe, the Ukrainian government will have to resolve all the urgent problems of raising living standards. Katerynchuk has his own less pragmatic plans about Ukraine’s European integration: in his view, the European idea should bring together the political elite and the grassroots of our country and unite Ukrainians around European values.

As the Donbas “European hearings” proceeded, Ukraine was advised to send more of its representatives to the EU, where they will learn to conduct business “in the European style” and bring our laws in line with those of EU countries and borrow work experience in many other fields. The Ukrainian side responded by saying that it is ready to learn and borrow Europe’s experience. But, as Ukrainian MP Vasyl Khara underlined, Ukraine is looking on the EU not only as a friend and partner but also as a rival. “You don’t need spongers. That is why we should make our businesses ready to compete with friends so that we all have equal opportunities,” he said.

Whatever the results, all the delegates were satisfied with their visit to Donbas. The European delegation said that these contacts managed to convince them that Donbas and other eastern regions do not have a negative attitude to the EU and are prepared to cooperate with it and later become a member with the rest of Ukraine. Katerynchuk added that eastern Ukraine is not indifferent to the European idea, so it is worthwhile advocating it here too.

It is generally clear that neither the European Union nor Ukrainian politicians can predict exactly when our country will be ready to join the EU. But even now a lot of European politicians are forecasting that a new crucial phase in EU-Ukraine relations will emerge by the end of 2008, and then it will be realistic to speak about at least a membership application. In Katerynchuk’s opinion, however, European integration cannot materialize any earlier than 7 to 10 years from now. He says that if early elections are called in Ukraine, they will speed up this process, and to some extent the new elections may clean up Ukraine’s political system, which will surely contribute to EU membership.

Katerynchuk also believes that Ukraine’s accession to NATO could also speed up admission to the EU, but this issue is no longer on the agenda in Ukraine because the North Atlantic alliance is no longer expecting us to join; we have not even received a membership invitation.

In any case, many countries support Ukraine’s pro-European leanings. As Charles Tannock noted, among these supporters are Poland, the Baltic states, and even Brussels, where Ukraine now has “many friends.”

The program of the Days of Europe in Donbas also included a visit on March 2-3 to the region by a delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), headed by Renate Wohlwend and Hanne Severinsen. They were also supposed to meet a number of civic and political organizations in Donetsk to discuss Ukraine’s European prospects.