Klitschko calls for sanctions against state officials

Vitali Klitschko, leader of the opposition UDAR parliamentary faction, said on March 12 he supports imposing international sanctions against certain Ukrainian state officials. “It’s them – not Ukraine as a whole or its people – who are supposed to be the target of sanctions,” he said in a statement. “Today, Ukraine’s European path has been closed by the current Ukrainian government,” he said. “With its actions, the government is demonstrating that it doesn’t need Europe, democracy, dignified standards of quality of life and human rights. Of course, with such behavior, Europe isn’t rushing to invite such a Ukraine to full-scale integration processes.”

Zenon Zawada: The significance of Klitschko’s statement is the recognition by opposition leaders that the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement is drifting away. If they were careful of making such statements two weeks ago, then the events since then have made it obvious to all observers. Turning the tide has been the removal of Yulia Tymoshenko’s defense attorney Serhiy Vlasenko from parliament, as well as current talks to allow the Russian government to rent Ukraine’s natural gas transit system, possibly through a consortium that excludes the EU. Klitschko recognizes that only intense pressure on the administration of Viktor Yanukovych will reorient its current course back towards the West. Forbidding entry to the Schengen Area, as proposed in early March by a group of French MPs, would be an effective form of pressure. So would forbidding their access to the Schengen Area’s banking system, which the French MPs also advocated.