Ukraine will come back home – to Europe
“I recommend that we vote for visa liberalization, that we do so for the Ukrainian people, not for the Ukrainian government,” said the PACE monitoring rapporteur for Ukraine at a European Parliament session in a clear attempt to spell out a sincere desire to take a closer and unbiased look at the Ukrainians and understand what they really are.
I conducted a roundtable at the European Parliament just on the eve of the voting, on a day when it was debated whether or not to give us the green light after a certain delay caused by the liberals. Having some valuable experience of being in contact with international liberal political forces, our organization, Public Watch, scheduled this event for that very day because it was clear that it was very important to be in the epicenter in the moment of disputes about Ukraine, come and speak, and answer the questions still hanging in the air. We received help from the European Party of Ukraine, and it was very good that Vitalii Kaliuzhny (Party of Regions faction, chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Relations Committee), Ambassador Kostiantyn Yeliseiev, and Ambassador Mykola Tochytsky chose to come and join us.
Indeed, the European Parliament’s Liberal-Democratic faction decided to abstain when voting for visa liberalization with Ukraine due to the lack of understanding Ukrainian realities. No matter how hard they wished, they still failed to meet the Verkhovna Rada’s Committee for European Integration – they received no new signals after being told that this committee had not been set up. It would be to simplify things to say that the faction made this decision because it fixated too much on the ill-fated homosexuality propaganda ban bill. What they really wanted to know was the extent to which the Ukrainians were prepared for tolerance, whether they were really aware of the dangers of a world of intolerance, whether there was at least some truth in the myths and stereotypes about the Ukrainians, and what was the real message of parliamentary imbroglios, mind-boggling declarations, and circus-style escapades of politicians on both sides of the Ukrainian political barricades, whether they interpret the rule of law as a clear and indispensable axiom, and whether one can believe them even when they take a step towards democracy – will they not make a U-turn once they are believed?
The question they asked us was: how can we help you cope with all this? The question we formulated at the meeting was: let us decide together how to cooperate so that the Association Agreement, a very important thing for the people of Ukraine, is signed later this year in Vilnius. So we, politicians and active citizens, worked together for this.
They are openhearted and always determined to meet anybody but the tight-lipped bureaucrats who irk them too much with their unpredictability and dim-wittedness – they have long been looking for human, civilized faces everywhere. Therefore, they took a wait-and-see approach to make sure that such faces do exist.
Among the first to speak at the roundtable were Ms. Annemie Neyts-Uyttebroeck (Belgian, Committee on Foreign Affairs) and the British MEP Sir Graham Watson, president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. Johannes van Baalen (the Netherlands), who scathingly criticized our problems with democracy, said: “Ukraine should not become the second ‘last dictatorship,’ like Belarus: let us help it not to become one.’ The European Parliament’s human rights co-rapporteurs Leonidas Donskis (Lithuania) and Kristina Ojuland (Estonia) called upon us to do our best not to be misled. Public Watch chairman Eduard Zeinalov said that it was important to give the Ukrainians who study in Europe an opportunity to facilitate visa extension and ease the burden of the obstacles that hinder the Ukrainians who apply to European embassies – this could successfully arouse pro-European sentiments in the state. Zeinalov emphasized that a multicultural and multiethnic Ukraine has had no ethnic, racial, or religious conflicts – on the contrary, it is amply showing a good example of loyalty and tolerance to many. A well-known lawyer and politician, Oleksii Reznikov, reminded the audience of Ukraine’s history and European nature: Ukraine had a longtime Magdeburg Law experience and went through the horrible experiments of Stalinism and communism, which were aimed at breaking its very essence. He explained that society should be delicately told that association with the EU would help it win back what it had lost and would pave an irreversible way to revising all the legal circumstances with which Ukraine is struggling. So it is important to open it the door to the democratic world, instead of pushing it to the reservation for those who are “not mature enough.” Natalia Sevidova took the floor on behalf of young Ukrainians. “The young people should be free to travel to and study in Europe, come back and develop the Ukrainian world. It is mutual interest, it is a strong mutual penetration,” she said. The MEPs listened to us attentively, appreciated this opportunity, considered our arguments, and said finally that they would think again over how to vote on Ukraine in the best possible way. That about an estimated 60 percent of liberal politicians raised their hands to vote “for” is ample proof that these friends of ours are determined to discover a European Ukraine for themselves.
Yes, some of the MEPs abstained, but this is a sign that we must read properly: we are told that the door is open to the Ukrainians, but the government should know that it would not manage to go back on its promises – the questions still remain and will be asked as many times as necessary to get a positive answer.
This meeting made it still clearer that it is extremely important to come out of your shell, travel to and speak with Europe, tell the latter about our history and circumstances, show them what we really are, and explain to them our unfathomable patience with which we are trying to tackle our post-Soviet traumatic mentality. It is too little to sit still, dying of hatred for the politicians who practice indecency. We must push our tomorrow’s history on our own, as the Ukrainians can do when they feel like citizens. We did so during Euro-2012, when, in spite of all the factors that distorted the picture of us, we showed to the entire world that we are very open, kindhearted, intelligent, well-mannered, responsive people and good neighbors. This important knowledge of us in fact played its role.
As the roundtable was drawing to a close, Ms. Neyts-Uyttebroeck took the floor and said that Ukraine, which she had never seen, deserved to be supported and she was immediately revising her schedule to be able to go and see it at last.
In May, we fly to Brussels to take part in Ukraine Day, a major event prepared by a liberal democratic group. This will be the continuation of our Public Watch, a plan chiefly aimed at bringing Ukraine back to Europe from where it was torn away by evil hurricanes, but its place is still being close guarded.
