Yanukovych issues decree to implement EU requirements

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed a decree on March 13 approving a decision reached the prior day by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to implement “non-delayable measures for Ukraine’s Euro-integration.” Council Chair Andriy Kliuyev is responsible for monitoring the process, which requires the active involvement of the Cabinet of Ministers in providing for legislation for parliamentary approval and issuing acts to create the corresponding regulations. The decree calls for revotes in five single-mandate districts where results couldn’t be established in the October parliamentary vote. The same day, Party of Regions MP Yuriy Miroshnichenko said the president’s decree contains the conditions for resolving the imprisonment of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Zenon Zawada: We’re watching the latest chapter in the Yanukovych administration’s ongoing flirtations with the EU. Just as the government will attempt to fulfill the minimum of the EU’s requirements (or in some cases, feign to do so), it is engaging in practices unacceptable to EU values, such as booting Yulia Tymoshenko’s defense attorney Serhiy Vlasenko out of parliament. EU Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule referred to this situation as “paradoxical.” We characterize it as the Yanukovych administration’s pragmatic policy, in which it plays foreign powers off each other to its maximum benefit. Although the March 13 decree is a positive step (albeit minimal), it will mean little to the EU community if the Yanukovych administration’s deeds don’t conform to the principles and laws on paper. Meanwhile, we don’t doubt that the decree’s conditions can provide for Tymoshenko’s release. But we doubt that the Yanukovych administration will make use of these conditions.