EU Parliament condemns Ukraine violence as Association road map reached

The European Parliament passed on Dec. 12 an emergency resolution on the Eastern Partnership program, most of which addressed the situation in Ukraine. The resolution condemned the Ukrainian government of applying force to demonstrators, the opposition and journalists. In particular, it criticized the violent dispersal of the Nov. 30 peaceful protest and excessive use of force against demonstrators on Dec. 1. It also condemned the Dec. 9 raid on the headquarters of the leading opposition Fatherland party, from which its servers were confiscated and more than USD 1 million in damage was done. The resolution stressed the possibility of holding pre-term elections to resolve the political crisis in Ukraine and proposed holding a roundtable involving European Parliament MPs and European diplomats as intermediaries between the government and opposition.

The EU declined the opposition’s request to impose sanctions, deferring that option to the local governments. “EU member-states should study the possibility of applying targeted sanctions against those responsible for using violence against protesters,” said European Parliament MP Rebecca Harms, as reported by the Kommersant-Ukraina newspaper on Dec. 13. “They need to be forbidden entry to the EU. They need to be brought to justice for their actions.”

The EU and Ukrainian governments reached an agreement on Dec. 12 for the next steps necessary to sign and implement the Association Agreement, EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule announced on Dec. 12 in Brussels, as reported by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. A road map for implementing the agreement will be prepared and the EU will offer urgent help to promote discussions with the IMF, he announced after meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov. They agreed to use the current bilateral consultation mechanism “to analyze and review all problematic issues related to the Association Agreement’s implementation.”

The EU is supposed to help renew trust in Ukraine, not only among the population but also investors, Fule said. “It’s important that Ukraine handles its financial difficulties,” he said. He welcomed the recent IMF statement that it’s ready to renew negotiations with Kyiv once it’s ready to conduct reforms. “There’s no better signal for Ukraine’s population than the soonest signing of the Association Agreement,” he said. “Our proposal to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people is on the table. The EU is ready to sign it as soon as the Ukrainian government will be ready to fulfill its necessary criteria.”

Zenon Zawada: There are several dynamics happening in the Ukrainian government, the main one being that President Viktor Yanukovych is focused on preparing to sign a strategic partnership agreement in Moscow on his Dec. 17 visit. If the Euro-Maidan is intact by that day however, Russian President Vladimir Putin won’t be willing to sign any important deal with Yanukovych, whose future as president is highly uncertain.

Arbuzov is patching together the Yanukovych administration’s back-up plan should agreements with the Russian government collapse. Yet we don’t rule out that Arbuzov is negotiating with the Europeans not so much on behalf of Yanukovych, but rather in the interest of Ukraine’s other oligarchs who are starting to distance themselves from the isolated president. Although Arbuzov is a close associate to the Yanukovych family, we see the potential for his role in an effort to replace the president with another trusted politician in order to quell the protests and reintroduce stability.

Yanukovych’s sons and their close associates, including Arbuzov, could also be seeing this solution as a way to maintain power while their beleaguered father could stay involved behind-the-scenes. However some of them would have to resign themselves, particularly Internal Affairs Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko.