European proposal

Presenting the European Commission’s new proposals aimed at deepening the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which also envisages cooperation between Ukraine and the EU, European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a Brussels communication that the European Union would like to see Ukraine as part of the so-called economic neighborhood association.

The new offer does not envision membership prospects for countries aspiring to enter the European Union. The European Commission expects the new proposals to improve the implementation of this policy because they call for the EU to provide assistance to partners that want to continue reforming “faster and better.” The new proposals are accompanied by progress reports on the implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy, which will be reviewed as Germany takes over the EU presidency early in 2007.

The new proposals mention no prospects for Ukraine’s EU membership. Instead, they suggest as close neighborhood as possible. “I think there are many opportunities to bring Ukraine as close as possible to the European Union and, as I have said, in the long term it is the idea of having the so-called economic neighborhood association,” Interfax quotes Ferrero-Waldner as saying. At the same time, she admitted that it is impossible to predict the future at the moment, and she believes that the Ukrainian partners are well aware of this. Therefore, the Ukrainian side should avail itself of every existing opportunity, including the investment fund that is also part of the European Union’s new neighborhood policy proposals, the EU commissioner said.

Ukraine was entitled to receive 100 million euros in 2006 as part of the European Neighborhood Policy and is expected to get 120 million, a 20—percent increase, in 2007. The total European Neighborhood Policy budget will reach 12 billion euros between 2007 and 2013. A total 16 countries are cooperating within the framework of this policy: Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, and Ukraine.

The European Commission believes that the first 18 months of the European Neighborhood Policy have produced good results. “The neighborhood policy has made a positive start, but the European Union can do much more,” Ferrero-Waldner stressed. The commissioner noted that the EU and Ukraine are working very well as far as the European Neighborhood Policy is concerned. She says she sees far more opportunities in the future, in particular, a comprehensive agreement on a free trade area. But this will only be possible after Ukraine finally joins the WTO in late 2006 or early 2007.

The EU Communication also proposes “clear prospects for all ENP partners, eastern as well as southern, for deep economic and trade integration with the EU, going beyond free trade in goods and services...substantially improved visa procedures for certain types of visitors...regular ministerial and expert-level meetings with ENP partners on subjects like energy, transport, the environment, and public health...strengthened political cooperation...and a more active role for the EU in conflict regions.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian diplomatic circles are not too optimistic about the European Commission’s new proposals. An informed source says that the new document is making a rather unpleasant and humiliating impression on Ukrainians. “It is humiliating not only because of the company of the countries into which we were included without our consent. It is humiliating not only because the EU has in fact done nothing and is pursuing nothing but its own egoistical interests in our region. Above all, it is humiliating because they are offering, without asking us, what amounts to an Indian reservation and saying: let’s not talk about the future, just stay where you are, and don’t bother us with your European ambitions, and we will give you a candy for this and praise you,” the source said. In his view, the sooner Ukraine rejects the European Neighborhood Policy, the better.

From the very outset the EU has regarded the ENP as an alternative to the enlargement policy, so this runs counter to the Ukrainian vision of relations with the EU. Proof of this is EC Communication No. 795 (2004) stating that the ENP “offers a means to strengthen relations between the EU and its partners, which is distinct from the possibilities available to European countries under Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union.” In an interview with the Ukrainian media on the eve of the Helsinki Ukraine-EU summit Ferrero-Waldner said that “today Ukraine cannot count on the prospect of membership because it is an ENP participant.”

Incidentally, the ENP’s pivotal principle is differentiation. Analyses show that the EU applies this principle to partner states on a selective basis only if it can benefit from this. In particular, this concerns agriculture and human migration. In contrast to its relationship with other ENP partners, the EU refused, for rather obvious reasons, to include provisions on Ukraine-EU cooperation in agriculture in the Action Plan (AP) with Ukraine, or to discuss this problem with the ENP framework.

Further proof of the EU’s biased approach to the ENP is the fact that when the union periodically assesses the fulfillment of an AP, it only analyzes the work that the partner country has completed. These reports never indicate whether the EU has fulfilled its own action plan obligations.

The EU’s fragmented approach and its results are at variance with the principles of the ENP as a fundamental policy that is supposed “to develop closer relations not confined to cooperation and which are aimed at the gradual economic integration and political collaboration between Ukraine and the EU.”

COMMENTARY

Vasyl FILIPCHUK, deputy representative of Ukraine at the EU headquarters:

“We will carefully study the European Commission’s latest documents on the neighborhood policy. I would like to emphasize that this is a policy of the EU, not Ukraine. Our policy, specified in many documents of Ukraine’s president, parliament, and cabinet, is aimed at integration into, not neighborhood with, the EU. We accepted the European Neighborhood Policy as an instrument for gradually placing our relations with the EU on a qualitatively new level, as a transitional stage between the ENP and a new agreement that we think should be based on the principles of political association and economic integration. The three-year Ukraine-EU Action Plan is going to expire at the beginning of 2008, and I hope we will be able to work on the implementation of this very agreement rather than the ‘alien’ (in its current essence) neighborhood policy, which has also proved that it cannot address many of the issues in which Ukraine is interested. I personally do not think that the neighborhood policy can be of benefit to Ukraine and can replace the European integration policy. The sooner we draw up a new agreement, define mutually acceptable tasks, and focus on practical cooperation, the better. As for the European Neighborhood Policy, the EU can develop it further, but not with respect to the European state of Ukraine.”