ANALYSIS: Now it seems Kyiv's not so eager for integration with Moscow (06/06/04)

ANALYSIS

Now it seems Kyiv's not so eager for integration with Moscow

by Jan Maksymiuk
RFE/RL Belarus and Ukraine Report

Vasyl Baziv, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, made a rather unexpected statement on May 28 when he told journalists at a regular briefing in Kyiv that Ukraine does not intend to coordinate the process of joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) with the three other signatories of the accord on the creation of the Single Economic Space (SES), Russia, Belarus and Kazakstan.

"It is our position that every country has already gone its way and should now follow its own path," Mr. Baziv said. "The main thing is not to enter the WTO together or separately, but to enter it as soon as possible."

Mr. Baziv's statement was made less than a week after the SES summit in Yalta, where the four presidents talked a lot about the coordination of their policies toward forming a closer economic and trade alliance. In particular, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbaev stressed in Yalta that the cooperation within the SES would allow the four states to present the same conditions while applying for membership in the WTO.

Now Mr. Baziv has said something that may be viewed as a clear move to avoid such coordination. True, Mr. Baziv added that after becoming a member of the WTO, Ukraine intends to help its SES partners enter the organization.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Baziv's statement will not be renounced by President Leonid Kuchma in the near future, thus becoming only another item on a much longer list of Kyiv's incoherent or even somewhat schizophrenic official pronouncements concerning Ukraine's "multi-vector" foreign policies.

But Moscow has already reacted with surprise to Mr. Baziv's words. Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister Dmitrii Sukhoparov told Viedomosti that, without a coordinated position of the SES signatories with regard to WTO membership, it will be difficult for them to reach the declared goal of forming a free-trade zone.

"If during the talks with WTO members one [SES] country agrees to sharply decrease customs tariffs, it would be senseless for the other countries of the [SES] four, with a view to forming a free-trade zone, to conduct negotiations on tougher conditions," Mr. Sukhoparov added.

There were also people in Kyiv who raised eyebrows. "I don't know what happened and why such statements were issued by the presidential administration," Hanna Herman, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych's spokeswoman, told Viedomosti about Mr. Baziv's briefing. "The prime minister permanently stresses the need to coordinate the process of joining the WTO," she added.

Is President Kuchma making a fool of Mr. Yanukovych in the run-up to the presidential elections in which Mr. Yanukovych is poised to be the main candidate of the pro-Kuchma forces? Or is it just Mr. Kuchma's usual method of pursuing politics - to make a step toward Russia and then balance it by making another one in the opposite direction?

Meanwhile, acting Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka appealed to the European Union last week - with the obvious goal of preventing Russia from restoring its influence over Ukraine - that the alliance's 25 states make a clear pledge that Ukraine has a chance for EU membership in the future. Also, European Commission President Romano Prodi seemed to back down last week on his categorical statement reported in early May that neither Ukraine nor Belarus has any prospect of joining the EU.

Mr. Prodi told the Kyiv-based Den (The Day) newspaper on May 27 that he was misquoted. "I did not make the statement attributed to me," Mr. Prodi said. "We are working together [with Ukraine] on further strengthening our relations in the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy. This policy arose in response to EU expansion, but it is not aimed at expansion. ... This question [expansion] is not on the agenda yet."

Whether Brussels is serious in its work with Kyiv - and vice versa - may be seen fairly soon. Kyiv has signaled that it hopes to obtain market-economy status from Brussels - a sine qua non for obtaining WTO membership - during an EU summit planned at The Hague in July. In order to grant such status, Brussels demands that Kyiv relax its state intervention in determining pricing policy and upgrade its legislation on bankruptcy to meet European standards.

If everything goes well and Ukraine's economy is recognized as a market economy in July, then Kyiv will have a real chance to join the WTO in 2005 and considerably boost its chances of moving closer to Europe, regardless of who becomes Ukraine's president this autumn.

If not, the world will most likely continue to witness a wearisome and frustrating tug-of-war between Russia and Europe over what to do about Ukraine: include it in a Russia-dominated free-trade zone or make an EU buffer zone, or perhaps leave the country where it is now - in Europe's twilight zone.

Jan Maksymiuk is the Belarus and Ukraine specialist on the staff of RFE/RL Newsline.

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