Bruce JACKSON on the dangers of Ukraine’s participation in the SES

A CIS summit is soon to be held in Yalta, where an agreement is to be signed on the Single Economic Space (SES). What is your opinion?

As a friend of Ukraine and somebody who is working quite hard to protect Ukraine’s options in world politics, I believe this is not the best idea I ever heard. Also I can tell you as an American that the first time we went to Yalta we signed a bad deal that ended up dividing Europe for the next fifty years. I think Yalta-2 also holds those same dangers. Let’s look at what we know about this proposal. It’s been rejected twice by the cabinet. It’s doubted by almost every member of the parliament. It has been described as unconstitutional by the Minister of Justice. It is producing anxiety in persons like Verheugen of the European Union. It’s ridiculous as a business deal. In return for Ukrainian sovereignty you get six percent of the shares. What is going on? They say that what Ukrainian produces is so lousy that all they can do is sell it to Kazakhstan and Belarus, you can’t sell it in Europe. They used to say the same thing about the Japanese: they didn’t know how to produce radio and television sets. Once the markets were opened, the Japanese started to produce the best equipment ever made. Once Europe opens its market for Ukrainians, they will be competitive in that market, producing world-class goods.

Also, the SES idea retards Ukraine’s aspirations for membership in the Euro-Atlantic community. It hopelessly complicates your chances for WTO membership. It sends a message to the European Union that you are really not interested in their market integration, that you have no such ambition because you are perfectly happy with what you already have. It therefore undermines the case of Kwasniewski, Brzezinski, and Slovaks and Czechs who are trying in European courts to convince people that Ukraine should be in.

I would just add my personal opinion. Trying to get into a club with Nursultan Nazarbayev and Aliaksandr Lukashenka is probably the stupidest political idea I’ve heard in my life. Lukashenka can’t even set foot in the European Union, and Ukraine wants to sign a partnership with him. I can’t find anybody to tell me what’s in it for Ukraine’s citizens, where is the up side. The best thing that I heard about the SES was, don’t worry, we’ll never implement it, because none of the other CIS agreements were. But why a pay political price for something you don’t intend to implement?

I do think Ukraine should have warm and equitable business transactions with Russia and the whole of Central Asia, because this is important for the future. But I think you should establish that on sound economic and business reasons that answer your interests, not because Putin said you should sign the agreement.

You represent the non-governmental US Committee on NATO. Thus, it would be only natural to ask you whether signing the SES agreement would have negative impact on Ukraine’s integration into the Alliance.

I think the answer to this question is certainly no and then possibly yes. The objective answer is, economic organizations and free trade zones have absolutely nothing to do with the criteria influencing the country’s chance to enter NATO. There are only two criteria that matter: the state’s willingness to share political values and to share the responsibilities. I think that the contribution Ukraine is making to the coalition’s action in Iraq demonstrates its willingness to share responsibility. The most important values’ questions are obviously free and fair elections, protections and freedoms to the media, and constitutional reform that has to be both constitutional and really a reform. If we do these three things, we can do very well with the values case.

The answer to the other part of the question is possibly yes. I expect that I will get called before the Senate to testify on these things. And the question I worry about is, if Ukraine shares our values, why did they sign a business deal with Mr. Lukashenka? The EU and US have repeatedly said that the standards of human rights in Belarus do not meet the standards for normal contacts. We have also serious questions about human rights in Kazakhstan. So, if the senators ask me why Ukraine prefers the company of these people rather than Western democracies, this would be a hard question to answer.

As a person who has experience on Wall Street I can say there is a certain risk rating in doing business in any country. For a democratic country it is essentially lower than for a non-democratic one. I think the Yalta decision would substantially increase the country risk of Ukraine. You are telling foreign investors it is less desirable to invest here.

Considering the issue of NATO enlargement, the US gave much attention to whether the candidate countries supported Washington in Iraq case. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his speech in the Senate named this support one of the arguments for the enlargement. There were also rumors that you were the author of the Vilnius Ten’s letter on supporting the US on the eve of the war against Saddam Hussein regime. Will NATO member countries take into consideration Ukraine’s contribution into the stabilization forces in Iraq when making a decision on signing Membership Action Plan with Ukraine at NATO summit in Istanbul?

I would say this is an exaggeration of my role in the Vilnius Ten letter. In general, I think that Ukraine’s contribution into the coalition in Iraq made a great impression on the alliance members and Washington government. Ukraine got thrown out of the game because of murder of Gongadze and alleged illegal arms trade. A series of actions, in part, in Iraq have got Ukraine back on the playing field. President Bush is writing letters to President Kuchma, Secretary of State Powell would see Foreign Minister Hryshchenko, Donald Rumsfeld attended the Ukraine- NATO Committee meeting in Washington, Condoleezza Rice had a meeting with Yevhen Marchuk. Basically, you are back on the playing field, and now you have opportunities for further action.