So far unofficially and by experts only
Ukraine still arouses interest, at least among its closest neighbors. All assessments of the current situation in Ukraine itself and its relationships with the external world made by foreign analytical centers cannot be treated as really unbiased and based on a serious professional analysis of the situation, yet they often influence political decision-making. On the other hand, there is none of the overt ill will, of which the Left so often speaks. The impression of an incomplete picture arises after reading the Ukrainian related section of the online annual report by the Eastern Studies Center of the Polish Ministry of the Economy (www.osw.waw.pl), a far from hostile organization.
The Polish analysts conclude that Russia is Ukraine’s chief foreign partner, but the main idea of Ukrainian foreign policy is to prevent close economic cooperation with Russia from turning into political dependence, a goal Ukraine strives to achieve by means of close cooperation with the USA. Conversely, the importance of Ukraine’s relations with the European Union is diminishing, despite statements about the European choice, as is that of Ukrainian-Polish relations in spite of declarations of strategic partnership. Incidentally, the report emphasizes the fact that, when a new minister of foreign affairs was appointed in Ukraine, it was announced that Ukraine has two strategic partners, the US and Russia, thus relegating relations with the EU to the background. This is not quite true: the new/old Minister Anatoly Zlenko has repeatedly noted that Ukraine has three strategic directions in its foreign policy, i.e., the US, Russia, and the EU. The vocabulary of Ukrainian leaders has recently reincorporated the idea of integration in the Euro-Atlantic structures. Nobody, as always, says which structures exactly, so this opens the way for various interpretations.
The authors claim that Ukraine has no real prospects of being admitted to either the EU or NATO. This is nothing new: the West has quite a common perception that Ukraine cannot hope even for associate EU membership in the next few years (European Parliament Member Daniel Cohn-Bendit, known as Red Denis during student riots of the late sixties, mentioned the term of forty years at a conference). That the EU, after granting Ukraine the status of a market economy country, simultaneously denied it the chance of admission is considered by the report section author as quite a realistic position. Ukraine’s attempt to get closer to the EU has ended in a fiasco, the author thinks. And he does not doubt that Ukrainian authorities will make new concessions to Moscow owing to the problem of natural gas supply and transit and gas pipe control. The report says one should not expect Kyiv to display any major international activity in the immediate future (although this activity is in fact on the rise after the domestic situation has somewhat stabilized).
Obviously, many in today’s Poland no longer want to recall the response to the country leadership’s first claims to European community membership laid ten years ago. However, insistence plus domestic development and geopolitical factors have won out.
Other Polish experts and diplomats, speaking unofficially with The Day , do not advise taking the Eastern Studies Center report too seriously, for previous documents of this kind also happened to contain many mistakes and superficial conclusions. Meanwhile, the center is a state-run entity, at least as far as funding is concerned. In any case, this raises questions, especially after the latest meeting between Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Aleksander Kwasniewski. For example, what is the true Polish official policy toward Ukraine, based on everyday practice rather than on customary official declarations? What kind of prospects does Warsaw see? Is it not insulting for Warsaw itself to claim that the importance of Ukrainian-Polish relations is diminishing? Moreover, according to Wojciech Inglot, chairman of the Peremyszl city council, who represented local business before being elected, the admission of Poland to the EU will only increase, not at all diminish, the need to have a real partnership with Ukraine.
Simultaneously, it is obvious that the ideas expressed in the report should still be reckoned with, especially in the light of the alarming poll results about the attitude of rank-and-file Poles toward Ukrainians.
INCIDENTALLY
In an interview with the Slovak Pravda , President Leonid Kuchma repeated almost literally what he had already said at the CIS summit in Minsk about the possibility of Ukraine joining the Russian-Belarus Union. “This is impossible. We have won our independence not to lose it... We have chosen our union, and it is the European Union.” Mr. Kuchma further emphasized Ukraine is well aware that this is going to be a long, not short, road and said, “We are not going to redraw our strategic plans, including the construction of a truly European democratic state.” At the same time, Mr. Kuchma did not rule out close cooperation with the Russian-Belarus Union, citing the fact that Europe is also closely cooperating with Russia, particularly because of the considerable reserves of raw materials in Russia.
