NEWS AND VIEWS

Ukraine, Europe, and ... Albania

by Dr. Roman Solchanyk

What do Ukraine and Albania have in common? Not very much it seems. For one thing, Albania is on its way to joining the European Union (EU) and, by extension, becoming "European," and, by further extension, "normal." Ukraine, on the other hand, is not joining anything in Europe in the foreseeable future and is well on its way to becoming ... well, you get the picture.

For anyone who remembers the international political climate during the East-West confrontation of the 1970s and 1980s, Albania occupied a rather specific niche in that environment. Not unlike today's North Korea, no one really knew much about what was going on inside the country, which was widely perceived as being populated largely by goats and run by whackos who were pro-Chinese and anti-Soviet. Anyone who was vacationing on the Greek islands in those days could easily avail oneself of the distinct pleasure of tuning in to the Maoist gibberish offered by Radio Tirana on a daily basis.

Well, at the end of January, the European Union formally opened negotiations with Albania for a Stabilization and Association Agreement, which is the first step toward EU membership. European Commission President Romano Prodi was on hand in Tirana to launch the proceedings, effusively praising his hosts and expressing "great confidence in Albania." "The vitality you see here," said Mr. Prodi, "you don't see in many other countries."

This is the same Mr. Prodi who insists that Ukraine will never (repeat, never) be a part of Europe. Last October, referring to Ukraine, Russia and Moldova, among others, Mr. Prodi told La Stampa that insofar as these countries are concerned "you could link many things - but not institutions." Not long after, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper, Mr. Prodi posed the far from rhetorical question of where Europe should end. "The Balkan countries will join," he asserted, "they belong. Turkey is officially a candidate, that is clear. But Morocco, or Ukraine, or Moldova? I see no reason for that."

According to the EU leader, "The fact [that] Ukrainians or Armenians feel European means nothing to me. Because New Zealanders feel European, too."

What is both ironic and somehow amusing in a depressing sort of way is that earlier this year a Kyiv weekly extensively quoted Bruce Jackson, co-chairman of the non-governmental U.S. Committee on NATO, who admonished the Ukrainian leadership for failing to match its declarations about wishing to "rejoin" Europe with concrete initiatives that would make this a reality. Mr. Jackson was quoted as warning that if reforms were not set in motion fairly quickly "You could become one big Albania."

In all fairness, one must admit that Albania has made significant progress in its transition from the failed experiment with "socialism," specifically with respect to the economy. During the past three years, real GDP has grown on the average of about 7 percent. But Ukraine's economic performance has been quite respectable as well: real GDP growth was 5.9 percent in 2000; 9.1 percent in 2001; 4.1 percent in 2002; and is projected by the International Monetary Fund to be 5 percent this year.

Moreover, Ukraine is doing better than Romania and Bulgaria, where real GDP growth was about 3.5 percent last year. Anyone remotely familiar with Romania, where one-third of the population lives below the officially defined poverty level, would be hard put to disagree with the prevailing image of the country as characterized by a long- time observer: homeless street children, HIV-ravaged orphanages and packs of feral dogs loping around the streets of Bucharest. Yet, Romania (and Bulgaria) will be NATO members in 2004 and will join the EU in 2007 - i.e., they will be "Europeans."

The issue, therefore, seems to be something other than economic progress. As it turns out, for Mr. Prodi - and, one suspects, for most of the people who live in what used to be known as Western Europe - the issue is identity. In a speech to the European Parliament last December, Mr. Prodi made it very clear that the debate about where Europe ends is a debate about identity, and that "this is something we as Europeans [read: West Europeans], after listening to everyone, shall decide ourselves, without any outside interference."

Actually, the debate is more or less over, although most Eurocrats in Brussels are loathe to admit it. Mr. Prodi's speech in Strasbourg in December was titled "One Europe," which, he said, was for the most part an "accomplished" fact after the latest expansion of the EU, which will bring in 10 new members next year.

But the problem for Ukraine is not entirely one of Western Europe's seemingly arbitrary approach to who qualifies and who does not qualify as "European." Ukrainians themselves are far from united as to who they are and where they belong.

Last year, after more than a decade of independence, a Kyiv sociologist reported that only 41 percent of survey respondents considered themselves to be citizens of Ukraine; almost the same proportion saw themselves as "locals" of one sort or another; and nearly 13 percent felt that they were Soviet citizens.

A full 56 percent of the population preferred some kind of "Eastern" orientation for Ukraine: the Commonwealth of Independent States, Russia or an East Slavic bloc (Ukraine, Russia and Belarus). About 13 percent favored ties with the West and another 22 percent wanted to strengthen independence and rely on Ukraine's own resources. At the same time, in December of last year more than a third of Ukrainians felt that Stalin was a "great leader."

Ukraine's neighbors in what used to be known as Eastern Europe view NATO as a marker of being European and are stumbling over themselves to join what may well be an institution whose time is past. But last year more Ukrainians were anti-NATO than pro-NATO, 38 percent and 19 percent, respectively. More troubling perhaps is that about 43 percent had no clue. As for the EU, only 15 percent were against joining, while 44 percent wanted EU membership. But, once again, more than 40 percent were clueless.

At the risk of offending the professional sensibilities of trained sociologists and other experts on contemporary Ukraine who are well-versed in the arts of theoretical and comparative analysis, I would hazard the guess that the main problem with Ukraine becoming "European" is precisely the fact that nearly half the population remains "clueless." That, by the way, is more or less the same proportion that considers itself to be "local" rather than citizens of Ukraine (or the USSR for that matter).

The leadership of Ukraine is very good at, among other things, creating perfectly useless bureaucratic structures. Last August, President Kuchma created a State Council on Questions of European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, which began "functioning" this January. Also in January, he created a National Center on Questions of the Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, which is headed by former national security adviser Volodymyr Horbulin, who does not have much else to do these days.

What Mr. Kuchma, the entire political class and all of Ukraine's poets, artists and songwriters have not been able to create is a Ukrainian nation.

Europe has responded accordingly. The EU, in its recently published "General Report on the Activities of the European Union," states that in pursuit of something called the "New Neighbors Initiative" - the meaning of which no one can fully explain - it will take an "integrated and differentiated approach" to new neighbors like Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova.

"Integrated and differentiated." I must admit that I am clueless as to what that might mean.

At this rate, it looks like, with a bit of help from France and Germany, Iraq could become a member of the EU before Ukraine.

Dr. Roman Solchanyk, a long-time contributor to the The Ukrainian Weekly, is a security analyst in Santa Monica, Calif.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 9, 2003, No. 10, Vol. LXXI

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