Releasing Yulia Tymoshenko would help anchor

7/2/13
Releasing Yulia Tymoshenko would help anchor Ukraine inside Europe | GlobalPost
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Taras Kuzio
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EDITOR'S CHOICE
July 2, 201 3 06:09
Releasing Yulia Tymoshenko would
help anchor Ukraine inside Europe
Commentary: Time slipping away for Ukraine to choose.
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BALTIMORE, Md. — US and European
policymakers are fatigued by two
decades of Ukraine’s inability to decide
whether it will go West or East and the
The promise of Kenya’s
Constitution
cliché “at the crossroads” has been used
many times to describe Ukraine’s
unwillingness to choose.
Time is slipping for the West to decide
whether it should give Ukraine a helping
ENLARGE
hand to alleviate its perennial
indecisiveness.
Perhaps this year is a golden opportunity
to do so.
A supporter of Ukraine's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko
holds a picture of the opposition leader during a rally held outside
Kiev's courthouse on December 20, 2011. Tymoshenko has declared
a hunger strike in protest at Ukraine's parliamentary elections, w hich
she says w ere rigged. (SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
In November, the European Union will hold an Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius,
capital of Lithuania, and the $6 million question US and European policymakers are deciding
Afghanistan atrocity
prompts rethink of US
policy
GLOBALPOST COMMENTARY
is whether this should go ahead on Kiev’s terms.
Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow at the US Atlantic Council and Rutgers University
academic, Alexander Motyl, both well-known Ukraine experts from different sides of the
Viktor Yanukovych camp, the former pro and latter anti, believe the Tymoshenko factor
should not be an impediment to anchoring Ukraine in Europe.
As Motyl says, "Not signing the association agreement would be an inconvenience for
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Yanukovych and a disaster for Ukraine. Signing will be great for Ukraine and a minor help
for Yanukovych. Hence the EU should sign but then use its bureaucratic creativity and
effectively make the agreement's actual implementation contingent on Yulia Tymoshenko’s
release."
Motyl believes Ukraine should be strategically anchored inside Europe and use the long
drawn-out ratification process by 28 EU members and the European parliament to secure a
deal on Tymoshenko. At the same time this has its pitfalls: it would be naive of any Western
policymaker who believes that, with a culture of believing in “free lunches” and saying “nyet”
to Western criticism and advice, they will have greater influence over Yanukovych after
Ukraine joins the association agreement.
US and EU diplomats are feverishly attempting to square the box by facilitating a facewww.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/commentary/releasing-yulia-tymoshenko-ukraine-inside-Yanukovych
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Releasing Yulia Tymoshenko would help anchor Ukraine inside Europe | GlobalPost
saving solution to the Tymoshenko problem by the Ukrainian authorities agreeing to send
her to Germany for medical treatment. But this step, which sounds relatively easy to
accomplish, opens up a Pandora’s box for the United States and European Union.
MOST SHARED
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Would it require Yanukovych to pardon her of the crime of “abuse of office” she was
SENATOR WENDY DAVIS'
FILIBUSTER KILLS TEXAS
ABORTION BILL (VIDEO)
sentenced for two years ago? And what about the additional murder charge hanging over
head? More importantly, would the electoral benefits in 2015, when Yanukovych stands for
29
re-election, of taking Ukraine into Europe be bigger than Tymoshenko, his irrevocable foe,
being free to campaign against him; albeit from abroad.
HORSE
SLAUGHTERHOUSES TO
REOPEN IN US
The problems faced by Western policymakers are far bigger than Tymoshenko. Ukrainian
experts at the Renaissance Foundation, Ukraine’s branch of the philanthropic fund set up by
29
oligarch George Soros, pointed out that Ukraine has not fulfilled any of the 11 benchmarks
set by the EU for the signing to go ahead.
BRAZIL'S HYDRO DAMS
COULD MAKE ITS
GREENHOUSE GAS
EMISSIONS SOAR
Both Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov in a recent
interview in Le Figaro have rejected use of benchmarks out of hand. Ukraine’s leaders
20
continue to believe that they should be permitted to sign the association agreement for
geopolitical reasons and that no outside body such as the EU should have a say in their
domestic affairs.
US INCHES TOWARD
RECORD HIGH
TEMPERATURE AS MAN
DIES AND DEATH VALLEY
HITS 127 DEGREES
(VIDEO)
President Yanukovych believes he can have a “free lunch” with the EU because Ukraine is
too geopolitically important to be permitted to fall into Russia’s hands. He has therefore
sought to scare the West by seeking observer status in Vladimir Putin’s budding Eurasian
Union, the CIS Customs Union, and creating a consortium with Russia for Ukraine’s gas
pipelines.
Kiev knows it has little to fear from the US Senate Resolution 165 on Ukraine, recently
introduced and pending in the Foreign Relations Committee; it does not threaten sanctions
and has nothing in common with the Magnitsky Bill on Russia.
The EU has never had an appetite for sanctions on Ukraine because many of its members,
especially Cyprus and Britain (and its offshore zones BVI and Belize), receive billions of
dollars each year in money sent by oligarchs offshore to evade taxes. There is a reason why
Britain’s capital city is jokingly called Londongrad.
MOST COMMENTED
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Germany remains the leading opponent of signing but not because of human rights and
Tymoshenko. Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic — all strong supporters of
HORSE
SLAUGHTERHOUSES TO
REOPEN IN US
signing — see the association agreement as leading one day to full EU membership for
Ukraine. This is precisely why the Germans, who are adamantly against EU (and NATO)
enlargement, are using the human rights card that Yanukovych has so conveniently provided
13
for them.
The West — and ultimately Ukraine — gains more than they lose by the country moving
away from the crossroads into Europe and such a decision can’t be left to indecisive
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Ukrainians.
Taras Kuzio heads the Ukraine Policy Forum at the Center for Transatlantic Relations in
the School of Advanced International Relations, Johns Hopkins University. His book
US INCHES TOWARD
RECORD HIGH
TEMPERATURE AS MAN
DIES AND DEATH VALLEY
HITS 127 DEGREES
(VIDEO)
NSA SPIED ON
EUROPEAN DIPLOMATS
IN DC, NEW YORK AND
BRUSSELS, REPORT
SAYS
Commissars into Oligarchs. A Contemporary History of Ukraine which will be published by
the University of Toronto Press later this year.
http://w w w .gl ob al post.c om/di spatc hes/gl ob al post-b l ogs/c ommentar y /r el easi ng-y ul i a-ty moshenk o-uk r ai ne-i nsi de-Yanuk ov y c h
.
FEATURED SLIDESHOW
(PHOTOS): Horses, hats and Her Majesty: Ladies' Day at Royal
Ascot
A day at the most British of races.
Photo 1 of 15
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Releasing Yulia Tymoshenko would help anchor Ukraine inside Europe | GlobalPost
Day three of Royal Ascot is Ladies' Day. - [Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images]
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