KYIV – Ukrainians are finding themselves stalled on the road to integration with Europe after officials revealed bureaucratic hurdles that emerged in recent weeks. Some are the fault of the Ukrainian government, but the biggest factors are related to the large inflow of migrants, according to reports.
On the national level, the ratification of the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement faces more delays, and could still possibly be derailed, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte admitted on June 13, as reported by the nos.nl news site. He cited his country’s April referendum in which Dutch citizens voted against the government’s ratification of the agreement.
EU officials have delayed approval of a visa-free regime for the citizens of Ukraine – as well as Turkey, Georgia and Kosovo – until at least the fall, Evropeiska Pravda (eurointegration.com.ua news site) reported on June 10, citing anonymous EU diplomats.
“To a large extent, this is an issue of domestic policy. We are trying to show the voters from our countries that we are taking preventive measures from new possible migrant crises, including from Ukraine, though you aren’t the largest source of danger,” said one of the anonymous EU diplomats cited by Serhiy Sydorenko, author of the news analysis and the editor of Evropeiska Pravda, the leading Ukrainian-language online source for news from the European Union.
These preventive measures consist of the development of a legal mechanism to restrict migrant flow quickly should the sudden need arise, even after the EU visa-free regime is in place.
The regime will allow Ukrainians to travel to the Schengen zone of 26 countries, in all likelihood for a period of no more than three months, without having to go through the grueling procedure of applying for a visa at an embassy.
However, visa-free travel would not give Ukrainians the ability to set up residence in any of these countries or work there, which will require separate permission.
The idea for the restrictions emerged as visa-free talks began this spring with Turkey, which has been a key source of migrants from Syria, the Evropeiska Pravda report said. It has been most strongly advocated by France, but is also supported by Germany, Belgium and Italy.
As a result, the EU Interior Ministers Council decided to avoid any vote on a visa-free regime at its June 10 meeting in Luxembourg.
The other reason for the delay is the Ukrainian government, which has been dragging its feet on necessary EU reforms, the analysis said. This includes the failure to launch both the National Corruption Prevention Agency and the electronic assets declaration system for high-ranking officials.
Meanwhile, the anti-corruption requirements of the visa-free regime have been fulfilled only on paper – something that has frustrated EU officials, the report said. Led by the Germans, they want to launch a mechanism to monitor Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms, even after they’re officially implemented (on paper).
“German officials are most offended by the ‘imitation of the corruption fight in Ukraine,’ ” the news analysis said. “And diplomats often recall [former] Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, whom [Ukrainian President Petro] Poroshenko tried to keep in power with both truths and falsehoods.”
Meanwhile, in his trademark style, Mr. Poroshenko has continued to make misleading statements. Most recently, at a press conference on June 3, he fed the false hopes that the visa-free regime could be approved by the European Parliament and EU Council this summer, “but it’s not ruled out that it could happen in September.”
In fact, it’s procedurally impossible to complete all the necessary legal procedures by the summer, Mr. Sydorenko reported. September is the most optimistic scenario for approval, but October and November are more likely, he reported. By then, the EU should have created the legal mechanisms for halting visa-free travel and monitoring Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts.
Still other hurdles could emerge before then, Evropeiska Pravda said, including Ukrainian politicians taking advantages of delays as a populist pretext to cancel painful reforms, particularly those that interfere with their corruption. They may also undermine EU requirements that are unpopular with the Ukrainian public, including those that extend state protections to sexual minorities.
Canceling such reforms may provoke disappointment from EU officials, setting off a spiral of conflicts between Ukraine and the EU from which it will be difficult to emerge, Mr. Sydorenko wrote. “So each month in dragging out the visa-free regime for Ukraine is a path into the abyss,” he noted.
Waiting in the shadows to take advantage of any worsening in relations between the EU and Ukraine has been Russia, which played a key role in the April referendum in the Netherlands that rejected the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement. As a result, Dutch diplomats are in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to take into account the referendum by considering amending the Association Agreement, even after EU officials have repeatedly rejected Russian attempts to do so in recent years.
Adding another dimension to the problem is the fact that the current agreement has already been ratified by the parliaments of 27 out of 28 EU member states and any amended agreement would need to repeat the entire ratification procedure.
The frustration of the diplomatic quagmire created by the referendum was expressed by Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a June 13 press conference in The Hague.
“I am totally against referenda, and I am totally, totally, totally against referenda on multilateral agreements because it makes no sense,” he said. “You can’t as one country decide for all of Europe that you want the full EU to sign an agreement with an outside country. Thanks to the Social Democrats, our beloved coalition partners, we had the referendum and the referendum led to disastrous results.”
In order to repair this disaster, Dutch diplomats are considering several amendments that would, in essence, appease the Russians, the Austrian diepresse.com website reported on June 6. These include eliminating cooperation between Ukraine and the EU in the defense sphere, or at least reducing such cooperation, with the logic being that security is supposed to be the task of NATO and not the EU, the eurointegration.com.ua report said, citing anonymous Dutch diplomats.
The Dutch are also considering seeking guarantees that Ukraine won’t gain automatic access to the EU’s financial sources and that the Association Agreement’s approval won’t automatically assure Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.
The Netherlands has the EU Council presidency until June 30 (when Slovakia takes over) and the cited diplomats said they are “gaining positive signals from the other 27 member-states” on approving amendments, Evropeiska Pravda reported. Yet Mr. Rutte said in April that the Dutch government wouldn’t be able to decide on a course of action earlier than June.
Evropeiska Pravda also noted that Poland and the three Baltic states oppose the amendments, particularly with regard to eliminating defense cooperation.
In response to the diepresse.com report, the Dutch government issued a statement denying that its officials are seeking to amend the Association Agreement. At the same time, The Dutch government said it will keep open all its options as a resolution will require a “delicate approach” and consultations with EU partners and Ukraine.
In his June 13 remarks, Mr. Rutte allowed for the possibility that the Association Agreement with Ukraine won’t ever be approved, but he expressed hope that it wouldn’t go that far.