Zelenskiy reaffirms Ukraine’s EU integration course, draws full EU support

Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy assured
EU commissioner Johannes Hahn in a May 7 meeting that he will defend the path towards EU
integration chosen by Ukrainians, which in his words has no alternative. As his
main agenda priorities, Zelenskiy mentioned a Donbas ceasefire,
demonopolization of the energy sector, deoligarchization of the mass media, and
“not a fight against corruption, but victory over it.”

He also said he’d lead effort to readopt a law
punishing illegal enrichment, which was overturned by the courts in
February, and a new elections law to hold the parliamentary
vote exclusively based on open party lists, eliminating single-mandate
districts.

Zelenskiy’s overwhelming elections runoff victory
“gives him a very strong mandate for a fight against corruption and
deoligarchization,” said afterwards Hahn, the EU Commissioner for European
Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations. On behalf of the EU
leadership, Hahn said he offered Zelenskiy “full support on all reforms that
benefit Ukraine’s citizens.” In the current transition period before the
October parliamentary elections, “urgent reforms aren’t halted, but accelerated
to ensure financial and economic stability,” he said, as reported by the
pravda.com.ua news site. “Let’s not waste time!”

Zenon Zawada: If the EU
leadership is seeking “deoligarchization” from Zelenskiy, it will be very
disappointed. Not only are Ukraine’s oligarchs capable of fiercely resisting
any such campaign, with their control of the mass media and enormous influence
on political parties. But Zelenskiy himself could not have been elected without
the backing of Ihor Kolomoisky, among Ukraine’s biggest oligarchs whom he can’t
target. It’s worth recalling that President Petro Poroshenko launched a
deoligarchization campaign mostly to make Kolomoisky his only big target and cutting deals with other oligarchs,
some of which were alleged to exploit  the economy.
In the end, Kolomoisky got his revenge with Zelenskiy’s election. It remains to
be seen whether Zelenskiy will follow up on his elections promise to criminally
prosecute the president, but any legitimate deoligarchization campaign will
have to extend beyond a single political rival (as Poroshenko learned). 

As for Zelenskiy’s other mentioned priorities, we can
already be sure that he won’t be able to achieve a ceasefire in at least the
next six months, but likely further. We are confident Russia won’t accept any
alternative other than capitulation from Zelenskiy. We also don’t believe
Zelenskiy will be able to muster a majority in parliament to approve a new
election law considering it’s likely that many, if not most, of the current MPs
won’t be re-elected with it. Instead, Zelenskiy is better off calling early
elections under the current system, and then amend the election law with the
support of his own dominating faction.

Indeed, we don’t expect Zelenskiy will have much
success with anything unless he secures a powerful faction, the chances for
which improve significantly the earlier the parliamentary vote is held. If
early elections don’t occur and Zelenskiy wants a strong result in October, he
will need to produce (1) an IMF loan tranche, (2) IMF-required legislation such
as punishing illegal enrichment, (3) some major initiative to reform the
judiciary, improve law enforcement, eliminate corrupt government schemes, or
successfully prosecute high-profile figures.