20 June 2014
Ukraine’s parliament approved on June 19 nominations made by President Petro Poroshenko for key government posts. Pavlo Klimkin was approved as foreign affairs minister, Vitaliy Yarema was approved as prosecutor general and Valeriya Hontareva was approved as head of the National Bank of Ukraine. The same day, Poroshenko issued a decree appointing Valeriy Chaly as deputy head of the Presidential Administration.
Zenon Zawada: Poroshenko’s selection of Klimkin is pragmatic, given his experience working in Great Britain and Germany. Equally important, Klimkin has contacts within the Party of Regions, formerly led by Viktor Yanukovych, and is a native of Russia, having completed his undergraduate studies in Moscow. Under the Yanukovych administration, Klimkin even gave speeches favoring a multi-vectored foreign policy for Ukraine, with a greater emphasis on establishing relations with the Middle East and Asia. Seemingly, he’d seem like the ideal candidate with trust established on all fronts. Yet the Russian government has demonstrated it would be satisfied with anything less than full submission. Klimkin needs to guard against appeasing an unyielding Putin regime.
As for Yarema, he’s spent his career working up the ranks of the Internal Affairs Ministry to becoming the Kyiv police chief between 2005 and 2010, when it was rife with corruption. He’s very much an establishment figure. It’s unclear whether he has the will to perform the radical turnaround that’s needed for Ukraine’s police corps, which is demoralized and utterly corrupt. Meanwhile, Chaly is a staunch pro-EU advocate with extensive relations with Western leaders and experts. His appointment reflects the priority Poroshenko is placing on EU integration and fulfilment of the Association Agreement.