Lithuanian Scenario Spurs Kinakh to Clarify
Kyiv welcomes Lithuania’s plans to join NATO and the alliance’s eastward expansion, Ukrainian Prime Minister Anatoly Kinakh declared during an official visit in Vilnius. Both sides also pledged that official Kyiv and Vilnius will take all the required steps to prevent Lithuania’s accession from jeopardizing cooperation between Ukraine and Lithuania. The visit by the Ukrainian premier to Vilnius was obviously important, considering that this small Baltic country already is not merely talking European integration but has a deadline for joining NATO in November 2003, and the European Union in 2004. Most probably, Lithuania’s unequivocal agenda with regard to NATO and the EU has forced the Ukrainian premier to come up with a statement on the heels of his talks in Vilnius that Ukraine intends to become an associate member of the EU by 2007 and be prepared to apply for full membership by 2010-2011.
Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas’s press secretary, Niamira Pumprickajte, told The Day that Mr. Brazauskas has indicated readiness to share his country’s experience in gaining EU membership now that Vilnius has gone through all the stages. “Algirdas Brazauskas supported Ukraine’s intention to apply for EU associate membership in 2007 and full membership in 2010- 2011,” Ms. Pumprickajte noted, confirming that only such dates have been mentioned. In so doing, Lithuania has fallen out of line with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski’s statement, who last week agreed with Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Anatoly Zlenko that Ukraine should apply for EU associate membership simultaneously with Poland, that is, in 2004. (Apparently, Mr. Kinakh declared that 2007 as the deadline for associated membership should be regarded as indicating that Kyiv has not set a clear schedule for itself to knock on Europe’s door).
However, despite the uncertainty with dates, the trilateral cooperation of Lithuania, Ukraine, and Poland in the context of European integration will develop. One of the issues discussed by Mr. Kinakh during his visit to Vilnius was Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus’s initiative to hold a forum at which representatives of the three countries can discuss how to step up their cooperation against the background of EU expansion.
While Ukraine can benefit from Lithuanian experience, notably, in implementing economic reform and adapting its legislation to EU standards, Vilnius can use the Ukrainian experience in closing down its Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, something the EU wants to be done not later than 2009. Anatoly Kinakh also offered Ukrainian know-how in disposing of spent nuclear fuel. As stressed by Ms. Pumprickajte, the issue is in using this experience, not in dumping Lithuanian nuclear waste in Ukraine.
With Lithuania being one of Ukraine’s major transit routes, Premiers Kinakh and Brazauskas have agreed to set up a work group to foster bilateral cooperation in using Europe’s transport corridor No. 9 that goes through both countries.
Agreements for cooperation in 2002-2005 have also been signed between Ukraine’s Ministry for Agrarian Policy and Lithuania’s Ministry of Agriculture and between the Ministries of Education of both countries, as well as a memorandum on cooperation between the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of Ukraine and the Lithuanian Stock Exchange. Under the agreement between our Ministries of Education, both countries have pledged to assist 36,000 Ukrainian living in Lithuania and about 11,000 Lithuanians living in Ukraine to study their native languages. Reaching an agreement on this issue was quite easy as Ukraine is proud of its record of maintaining peace among the representatives of various ethnic minorities throughout the years of its independence, while Lithuania is the only Baltic country which has managed to avoid a conflict over the rights of the Russian minority.
