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On May 25th I attended a meeting about EU-Ukraine relations. Or, rather, the title was:

Round table discussions “European Prospects of Ukraine”,
and it took place in the Danish Parliament.

Programme:

1. Introduction by Erik Boel, President of Danish European Movement
2. Speech on “European Prospects of Ukraine” by H.E. Mr. Borys Tarasyuk, Chairman of the European Integration Committee of Verkhovna Rada (parliament) of Ukraine.
3. Comments by candidates to the European Parliament

* Claus Larsen-Jensen (Social-Democrats)
* Christian Wedel-Neergaard (Conservative)
* Fathi El-Abed (Socialist Peoples Party)
* Jette Dali (Danish Peoples Party)
* Hanne Severinsen (Danish Liberal Party)

4. Q & A

5. Concluding remarks by Mr. Fabrizio Tassinari, Senior Researcher of the Danish Institute for International Studies

Ms. Birgitte Nori (Silba), moderator of the discussions and questions from audience.

My notes:

1. Erik Boel introduced Mr. Tarasyuk, thanksed him for coming to Copenhagen. He compared Kiev to Paris. Stressed the importance of Denmark-Ukraine relations, that we strengthen this. He mentioned the situation in the 1990s in the Baltic states; civil society collaboration as well as the official diplomatic relations. It is important that we widen the Denmark-Ukraine cooperations, and that we raise a public awareness in Denmark about Ukraine.

Boel stated that the EUs neighbourhood programme was good but that the new partnership programme is better.

Boel also referred to the debate in Denmark about a possible Turkey membership of the EU, but Boel thinks we equally much could/should be talking about a Ukraine membership.

2. Borys Tarasyuk started out by thanking for the invitation and this chance to visit Denmark again. He also thanked Hanne Severinsen (Venstre) for her work in the Council of Europe and for her consistancy and reliability. Tarasyuk also thanked the Danish Institute for International Studies, where he spoke 8 months ago when he visited Denmark the last time.

Tarasyuk mentioned the old saying “Geography is Destiny”, and commented that one major neighbour country of Ukraine is Russia, and then there are the other European countries. Tarasyuk talked about the importance of Ukraine in medieval times, and how Kiev was compared to Constantinople and Cordoba during the 9th century. Today, Ukraine economy has a big potential – he mentioned the potential of the agricultural sector.

He talked about the 2004 Orange revolution, which was a truly European standard of revolution – no burning cars on streets, no mass deaths. He talked about the fact that Ukraine has destroyed its massive arsenal of inter-continental ballistic missiles. Ukrainian peace-keepers have been active in areas such as Kosovo and Croatia. Tarasyuk mentioned article 49 in the Amsterdam treaty and said that the EU should be more clear about Ukraine’s path towards EU membership.

He criticized the Neighbourhood programme; Ukraine being seen as part of “the neighbourhood” when clearly Ukraine is a part of Europe. He thinks the partnership programme is better.

He also talked some of what can Ukraine offer to the international community, and what its geopolitical role is. Ukraine is, among other things, an important transit country for oil. Ukraine also is a big producer of electricity. Ukraine has, as mentioned, a big potential in the agricultural sector.

Tarasyuk compared the EU to NATO, where NATO has kept an ‘open door policy’ towards Ukraine, whereas the EU is more mixed in their messages.

He challenged the EU to be more pro-active in regards to Ukraine.

3. 5-minute presentations by different candidates to the European Parliament
Note: Only partial notes from this.

Claus Larsen-Jensen (Social-Democrats)
Sees Ukraine as an important corner-stone in Europe.
Sees the new partnership programme with Ukraine and 5 other countries – not as an Alternative to Ukraine membership of EU but as a part of the process.

Christian Wedel-Neergaard
Talked about Danish investments in Ukraine. Danish agriculture companies active in Ukraine. He noted that the Danish foreign minister is very interested in Ukraine joining NATO. He talked a bit about the Copenhagen Criteria for an EU membership

Fathi:
Looking forward to the upcoming partnership programme. He also mentioned Russia’s role in this situation, Russia not being happy about Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO.

Jette Dali:
Agreed that Ukraine is integral part of Europe. Dansk Folkeparti is opposed to an enlargement of EU as such, but would rather that Ukraine become a member than Turkey.

Hanne Severinsen:
She has been in Ukraine several times, sees Ukraine as being in the middle of an interesting development. She praises Ukraine for its freedom of the media. She stresses the importance of practical solutions. Thinks we should look at the visa issue.

Q&A session

Jakob Knudsen from Silba:
Asked about the visa issue which Hanne mentioned. When will EU remove the visa requirement for Ukraine citizens?
Some debate, one guy mentioned the fact that we need to make sure that Ukraine can secure its borders before we remove the visa requirement.

A question from a Danish businessman doing business with Ukraine: “Do you politicians realize exactly how much bureaucracy is required for visa application from Ukrainians?” He asked politicians to – if not remove the visa requirement – then at least make it less bureaucratical.

Some debate, Fathi mentioned a relative of his, a businessman from Dubai, who also went through horrible visa issues. General comments about this not being a problem just for Ukraine citizens. General agreement that we would like this to change.

Borys Tarasyuk replied to the question, stating that when he suggested to the Ukraine president to remove the visa requirement for EU citizens to visit Ukraine, they were of course not naively thinking that EU would reprocate the next day. However, he would hope that something can be done in this issue over a reasonable time. He mentioned the 2012 European football championships and would see this as a good date.

Another question, this time from a Ukrainian student (unclear what institution he came from) to Tarasyuk:

1) What can Ukraine do to improve its image abroad? He mentioned the fact that Ukraine has done a lot for reducing the amount of nuclear warheads in the world by destroying their own stock, yet this is somewhat under-recognized internationally.
2) What presidential candidate in Ukraine does Tarasyuk think would be the best for Ukraine-EU relations?

Tarasyuk responded to 1) by comparing the amount of funds Ukraine has put aside for PR with Russia. Where Russia is spending 1.5 billion dollars on PR, Ukraine has put aside the equivalent of $5000. To 2) he did not give a straight answer as to who he thinks would be best, but he stated that ‘more presidential candidates most likely will turn up’ and that the important thing is consistency of message and solid work on EU/Ukraine relationship issues.

A question from _____ from SILBA: Could the Ukraine-Moldova conflict in _____ affect Ukraine’s path into Nato/EU?

Answer from Tarasyuk: This conflict is actually one of those regional conflicts which is closer to a resolution, and Ukraine is very active in this matter.

There was also a question to Tarasyuk about the presidential election – is there a risk that it would not be a general election but the president would be simply voted by the parliament? When will this election take place?

Tarasyuk replied that it is certain that this election will be a general election by the public. Timing – most likely December 2009 or January 2010.

Concluding remarks by Fabrizio Tassinari, Danish Institute for International Studies

Mentioned a saying by someone in the EU system who stated that “the EUs view on Ukraine is actually better than it looks”. However, he also said that the political message from Europe towards Ukraine will have to change – but he doubts this will happen anytime soon.

He mentioned the fact that very few (20?) Ukrainian students have been given an Erasmus scholarship to study a semester in Europe per year.

*****

Overall, I found this mini-conference interesting, considering it only lasted less than 2 hours. I got some new perspectives on Ukrainian politics, which is an area I find very confusing. I don’t know what will happen in Ukraine on the longer term, but I must say that I hope Ukraine can move towards Europe, and not back towards Russia – as some political parties in Ukraine wants.