Zelensky moves to dismiss Klimkin, who repeats warning of EU failure

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky submitted a
request to parliament on June 11 to dismiss Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo
Klimkin and appoint in his place Vadym Prystaiko, who currently serves as a
deputy head of the Presidential Administration. He also remains as the head of
Ukraine’s mission to NATO, to which he was appointed in July 2017. Klimkin
submitted his resignation as foreign minister on May 20, which parliament
failed to approve in a June 6 vote.

In a Facebook post the late night of June 11, Klimkin
warned the public that Ukraine is losing its chances at EU membership after
hearing at a breakfast “tales” to the contrary. “Someone heard that we will
join the EU in 2025. That’s nonsense since we would have had to start
negotiations for entry long ago already,” he wrote. “Someone heard that in ten
years – that’s more realistic, but nonsense all the same. Because entry talks
needed to have begun literally tomorrow for that. However, we were able to
conclude the conversation on a positive note: we will definitely do this. But
for this, we need to be head-and-shoulders above all previous candidates. I say
this without humor and very realistically.”

Zenon Zawada: Zelensky is
making another attempt at dismissing Klimkin because MPs said they refused to
lend support in the June 6 vote because the president hadn’t nominated a
replacement. Yet given that Zelensky is engaged in a housecleaning of
Poroshenko officials, which the former president’s allies resent and are
resisting, we don’t think that dismissing Klimkin has much better chances with
Prystaiko’s nomination.

As for Ukraine’s EU prospects, Klimkin has warned for
years that Ukraine needs to submit its EU membership application by 2020 in
order to be seriously considered as a candidate in the next decade. “If we
won’t be able to submit an application for EU membership, then we won’t be able
to do it even in 25 years,” he said in July 2015, as reported by the
eurointegration.com.ua news site.

Following Klimkin’s logic, the Poroshenko
administration (that he himself served) should bear much blame for failing to
prepare Ukraine for EU membership. Indeed, EU membership is beginning to resemble
an empty promise for politicians that is gradually having less resemblance to
reality. Billionaire oligarch Victor Pinchuk has admitted as much, calling for Ukraine to pursue a
Privileged Partnership status instead in order to restore relations with
Russia.

It’s very possible that such calls will proliferate
in the coming years in the political discourse, with more Ukrainians being
convinced that EU membership is not only unrealistic, but also not worth it, as
is already being argued by Ukraine’s pro-Russian parties. The Opposition
Platform For Life party will have a solid result in the July parliamentary
elections and will likely form a pro-Russian opposition to the pro-EU coalition
likely to be formed by Zelensky’s People’s Servant party.