EU to Help Reinforce Not Only West Ukrainian Border

This year the European Commission will supply Ukraine with 15 million euros under the TACIS program to help reinforce its frontiers. Of this sum 10 million euros will be spent on equipping the Rava-Ruska checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Polish border; 5 million on technical aid along all Ukrainian frontiers, EC representative Bernhard Bogensperger told the conference, The Current Status of Illegal Migration and Human Traffic in Ukraine” in Brussels.

In addition, 3.9 million euros will be allocated to reinforce the Ukrainian-Moldovan border, which is regarded by experts as the most troublesome sector. Mykola Lytvyn, chairman of the Derzhkomkordon (Ukraine’s state border protection committee), told the conference that there is a steady flow of smuggled alcoholic beverages and cigarettes across the border plus farming equipment and cattle stolen in border regions. Mr. Bogensperger said that a team of EU experts will be dispatched to the Ukrainian-Moldovan border to study the situation and determine what projects can help solve the problem. The EC and UN development program places special emphasis on the strengthening of the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, and EUR 960,000 will be allocated this February. Next year the European Commission will supply another 7 million euros to reinforce Ukrainian frontiers.

“We have managed to halve illegal migration and cut smuggled goods fifty times in the past two years,” Mr. Lytvyn said. This is an encouraging statement, yet the problem of weak frontiers is likely to remain a major problem for Ukraine, and border guard officers present at the Brussels conference made no secret it. In 2001, a total of 5,000 illegals were detained in Ukraine; 18,000 weapons, 2.7 million rounds of ammunition, 20 tons of illegal drugs, and smuggled goods worth over 2 million euros have been confiscated over the past several years. “The situation is unprecedented, as our country has turned out open to uncontrollable migration and munitions and drug trafficking after the USSR collapsed. Two-thirds of the border, meaning over 4,500 kilometers, were not delimited by the states concerned and remain unprotected. Add to this political instability in post-Soviet territories, military conflicts in Transnistria and the Transcaucasus,” Mykola Lytvyn pointed out. As a result, Ukraine had become a major transshipment point for illegal migration. EC list of air terminals favored by such illegals on their way to Western Europe includes those in Moscow, Istanbul, Warsaw, the Arab states, and Kyiv and Lviv in Ukraine. Oleksandr Chaly, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry state secretary for European integration, is convinced that the Ukrainian frontiers must be made European in spirit. A good example, in his opinion, is the German- Polish border. Derzhkomkordon believes that bringing the Ukrainian frontiers closer to the European standard will require 40 million euros.