Central Europe Leaps to Support Ukraine's Continued Relationship
with the West
Summary:
* The Council of Europe and the International Monetary Fund have
recently criticized Ukraine's efforts at economic and political
restructuring, and appear prepared to write the former Soviet
republic off. Central European countries, with a foot in the
door of the West but facing a growing threat from Russia, do not
wish to see Ukraine let go so easy. Candidate NATO members
Hungary and Poland, as well as Romania, are trying desperately to
keep Ukraine's options open and to keep the West engaged with
Kiev -- a noble effort which may unfortunately be doomed from the
outset.
Analysis:
In a report published on January 19, the Council of Europe
threatened to withhold Ukraine's membership due to Kiev's failure
to comply with the commitments it assumed when it joined the
Council in 1995. According to the report, Ukraine has failed to
abolish the death penalty, implement legal and judicial reform,
and enact a new civil code and laws on political parties.
Moreover, the report criticized Ukraine for not respecting the
rights of prisoners and for allowing only limited freedom of the
press. The report blamed Ukrainian Parliament members and other
officials for failing, as of the end of 1998, to meet the
country's commitments to the European parliamentary assembly. On
January 27, the Council of Europe will put Kiev on notice: Should
Ukraine fail to comply with its various commitments by the June
session of the Council, the Ukrainian delegation's powers will be
suspended.
In addition to being condemned by the Council for its delay in
implementing these measures, Ukraine has been strongly criticized
for its lackluster economic performance. According to Mohammed
Shadman-Valavi, the head of the IMF mission currently evaluating
the country's economic results, "the government's inefficient
policies in recent years have virtually deprived it of an
opportunity to borrow abroad, and the country has to take
difficult and unpopular decisions to stay afloat." By January
26, the IMF mission to Ukraine should announce whether the Fund
will resume its financing program, which was suspended in
November 1998. The IMF requires that the Ukranian government
demonstrate that its expected 1999 revenues are realistic before
the loan can be renewed. In short, Kiev has to develop and
implement a plan for covering the expected budget deficit of 1
percent of the GDP. According to Roman Shpek, the Chairman of
Ukraine's National Agency for Development and European
Integration, Western creditors could declare Ukraine bankrupt in
1999, provided the IMF does not resume its financial support for
payment of interest on foreign debts. What is certain is that
Ukraine's hard currency reserves are extremely low. Given this
and Ukraine's current political circumstances and the economic
decline, the latter having been caused to no small extent by the
economic crisis in Russia, the primary commercial partner of the
Ukraine, Ukraine's prospects for speedy improvement of its image
in the West are dim.
While Western Europe and the IMF appear ready to write off
Ukraine, Ukraine's post-communist neighbors -- Poland, Hungary,
and Romania in particular -- have leapt to shape their actions to
reflect the geostrategic importance of Ukraine. During Ukrainian
President Leonid Kuchma's recent visit to Warsaw, Polish
President Alexander Kwasniewski promised that Poland would back
Ukrainian efforts in dealing with international institutions such
as the European Union, the IMF, and the World Bank. Kuchma
pledged, in turn, that his country would model its attempt to
obtain integration with European economic and defense
organizations on Poland's experience. During the talks,
Kwasniewski stressed that "the year 1999, the year of
presidential election in Ukraine, is a very important, if not the
most important, period for the strengthening of the Ukrainian
sovereignty."
In a further effort to maintain contact with Ukraine, Hungary and
Romania plan to establish a joint unit of military engineers by
the end of this year. The new unit will be devoted to conducting
peacekeeping missions and fighting national disasters. During a
recent meeting of Romanian, Ukrainian, and Hungarian Ministers of
Defense in Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod, an agreement was signed to
establish "fraternal" relationships between Romanian and
Ukrainian military units stationed along their common border.
Central European countries, which will feel the greatest impact
of Ukraine's final position in Europe, understand the strategic
importance of including Ukraine in the Western military sphere,
especially at a time when Russia has started restoring its former
empire by founding the Russia-Belarus Federation. Hungary and
Poland, already well on their way into NATO and with their feet
in the door of other Western European institutions, are using
what influence they can muster toward the West to force a
reconsideration of the future of Ukraine.
Although Ukraine is at the brink of financial collapse, it is
still making an effort to gain integration into the West and
continues to shun a deeper relationship with Russia. On January
14, the Ukrainian Parliament rejected for the third time a bill
on joining an inter-parliamentary assembly of the Commonwealth of
Independent States. Clearly, Ukraine does not intend to
voluntarily return to the Russian fold, if it only has another
option. The West now has a momentous geopolitical choice. On
the one hand, it could refuse to help the Ukraine by insisting
that its reformist efforts do not measure up, and demand that the
country implement draconian economic measures that would likely
generate political instability and, ultimately, force Ukraine's
return to Russia. On the other, the West could -- despite the
high economic costs involved -- attempt to thwart Russian
strategic ambitions by not leaving the Ukraine economically or
politically exposed. Despite the strategic imperative, those
costs may be just too high.
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