PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO ADDRESSES EUROPE: Address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (02/13/05)

PRESIDENT VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO ADDRESSES EUROPE

Address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Following is the text of President Viktor Yushchenko's address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on January 25. The text is from BBC Monitoring based on a live broadcast on Ukraine's Channel 5.

Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of parliamentary delegations! It is a great honor for me to start my work as president of Ukraine by visiting the ancient city of Strasbourg and speaking to you here, within the walls of the oldest European political institution. The strategy of European unity formulated in 1946 by Sir Winston Churchill - to find a means that, like a miracle, would make the whole of Europe free and happy - has been fully embodied by the Council of Europe (CE). When Ukraine joined the Council of Europe in 1995, its intention was to become part of such a Europe, to share its values and to make a contribution to solving common problems.

Thanks to our membership in the Council of Europe - and we will mark a decade of it since the autumn of 1995 - thanks to the unwavering attention paid to us by CE institutions, and especially European parliamentarians, Ukraine has been able to survive a difficult transition period. Ukraine has been able to overcome the illnesses it inherited from its totalitarian past, as well as the teething pains of a young democracy. We are sincerely grateful to the Parliamentary Assembly for its support and encouraging signals, as well for its fair and sometimes tough criticism over the past 10 difficult years.

We are grateful to you because you sounded the alarm when the horrible tragedy of journalist Heorhii Gongadze happened, because you stood in the way of a final assault on freedom of speech in my country, and for your constant attention to Ukrainian constitutional reform. I would like to say special thanks to two courageous PACE rapporteurs, Hanne Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend, who were Europe's eyes, voice and conscience in Ukraine.

All together, despite all obstacles, we have been able to build a democratic and law-abiding civil society in Ukraine, and to approach the high standards of the Council of Europe, to implement the humanist ideals on which the Council of Europe is based. I am confident that Ukraine's Orange Revolution was possible in large part thanks to the fact that European values, and first of all freedom and democracy, have firmly taken root in my people's mentality. Ukrainians as a free European nation, a signatory of the European convention on human rights, could not tolerate an assault on their freedoms. They stood up and defended their right to a free and honest election, freedom of speech and freedom to build their future.

I would like to convey the Ukrainian people's heartfelt thanks to all representatives of the Council of Europe, parliamentarians and observers for your support and assistance in that difficult time for Ukraine. Thank you for sacrificing your Christmas holidays to travel all around Ukraine, from the east to the west, for your compassion and solidarity.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Right after Strasbourg, a symbol of Europe's conscience, reconciliation and democracy, I will be travelling to Auschwitz, a symbol of Europe's pain, the site of the Nazi's worst death camp. I will honor the memory of its prisoners - my father was one of them - and pay tribute to the people who liberated this camp and the whole Europe from Fascism. For me, Auschwitz is a personal pain. It is in the details of my father's memories, which I pass on to my children.

It is in the handful of earth on which I swore never to allow any manifestations of anti-Semitism or intolerance to other nations, religions, languages or cultures in Ukraine. Auschwitz and Hitlerism, the Gulag and Soviet totalitarianism, the Holocaust and the Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-33, which took up to 10 million human lives and was concealed for many years by the Stalin regime behind the Iron Curtain, the deportation of entire peoples and shooting of peaceful demonstrators, persecution of opponents and other horrors Europe saw in the 20th century make us remember, first of all, our common responsibility for the fate of every European country.

It makes us remember that we must never allow new division lines or new Berlin walls to be built, behind which any crimes can be committed in secret and go unpunished. And the main thing: it makes us remember that we must ensure the law prevails, that any violations of human rights are unacceptable, because the consequences can be irreparable.

In connection with this I would like to repeat your words, Mr Chairman, that our strength is in our commitment to human rights and democracy not as abstract values or empty words, which are often spoken but mean little, but in responsibility based on mandatory rights and demonstrated in practice. I would like to reassure you that I, as president of Ukraine, will do all I can to make sure that the democratic transformations in my country are irreversible, that the fundamental principles of the Council of Europe prevail, that human rights, pluralistic democracy and the rule of law are protected.

Based on these principles, the Ukrainian government will work to ensure further democratization of government institutions, independence of the judiciary, real freedom of speech and improvement of the situation with the media. We will work to strengthen civil society and fight corruption, organized crime and illegal migration. Of course, we count on further support from the Council of Europe in achieving these ambitious goals, on using its powerful expert potential to speed up the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation and practices with European standards. Ukraine's new government will closely cooperate with all the other branches of power, especially the legislative branch, to carry out the last two commitments we undertook when joining the Council of Europe.

I also believe it is my moral duty to provide maximum assistance to the investigation of the Gongadze case and other high-profile investigations of violence against journalists and to bringing the culprits to justice.

It is my deep belief that the truly democratic nature of the changes that you have witnessed in Ukraine, the maturity demonstrated by Ukrainian society during the election, the Ukrainian leadership's commitment to European values and the principles of democracy are vivid proof of the need for qualitative changes in our country's cooperation with the Council of Europe and, above all, its Parliamentary Assembly beyond the framework of procedures established decades ago under very different circumstances and for putting it on a foundation of true partnership.

Such a step would not only confirm Ukraine's progress along the path of democratic reforms but would prove true evolution of the assembly itself and its ability to provide an appropriate response to today's realities. This would also become a significant incentive for Ukraine's progress along the path of the single European area of democratic stability, creating which is perhaps the organization's most important goal.

The end of the presidential election in Ukraine is only the beginning of a healing process until full recovery as a fully grown healthy system, immune to the viruses of corruption, autocracy, censorship and any violations of human rights. This is the beginning of confident movement towards economic prosperity, social guarantees and a dignified life for each Ukrainian.

This path is difficult, but not necessarily a lengthy one. I know how to do it. I believe that Ukrainians can do it. I have a clear plan for transformations in Ukraine for the next five years, and I have a team capable of fulfilling it. I will not dwell on it in detail. I will only note that it is based on achieving a strategic foreign-policy goal: membership in the European Union. This is a simple and understandable formula for the well-being and security of Ukrainians. Bodies of state power inside the country will be reorganized to give a real, rather than declarative, dimension and content to the process of integration into the European Union.

We welcome the European Union's intention to develop a new strategy of relations with Ukraine. I am convinced that it should contain the prospect of membership. In this regard, we view the Ukraine-EU action plan within the European Neighborhood policy as the first step towards attaining this goal. In the near future, we are counting on getting the status of a market economy and by the end of 2005 on joining the WTO [World Trade Organization] and concluding an agreement on a free trade area with the European Union.

An important psychological factor would be a simplified visa procedure between Ukraine and the countries of the European Union. As living standards in Ukraine improve, the wave of labor migration to the West will be reversed, and Ukrainians will travel to Europe on holiday, to study and to exchange experience. This goal is consistent with the huge effort made within our organization to facilitate freedom of travel in Europe.

The initiative to make Europe a visa-free area for Council of Europe member- states will become the most convincing and humanist proof that the integration processes on the continent are viable. I believe these serious geopolitical and democratic processes will become a wonderful background to our organization's third summit, which I will attend by all means. Thank you for your attention.

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