Udovenko in Canada for bilateral meetings (03/09/97)

Udovenko in Canada for bilateral meetings

by Christopher Guly
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

OTTAWA - Ukraine is not responsible for its economic crisis, Foreign Affairs Minister Hennadii Udovenko told a breakfast meeting at the National Press Club in Ottawa on March 5.

He explained that his country still is feeling the effects of the Soviet Union's demise at the end of 1991. "We were part of the Soviet economy," said Mr. Udovenko. "We were inexperienced in managing our economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Ukrainian economy collapsed."

Mr. Udovenko, who served as Ukraine's ambassador to the United Nations and Poland before becoming foreign affairs minister, said the international community was unfair in offering Ukraine conditional financial aid.

"We inherited this huge nuclear arsenal from the Soviet Union, which made us the third largest nuclear power in the world. And we still suffer from it," he said. "When we have been promised financial support, it always comes with the plea, 'Please disarm.' Well, there are still a lot of missiles and fuel from that arsenal left that we don't have the technical expertise to destroy."

Last May, Ukraine dismantled its 63 remaining nuclear warheads, in keeping with its previous declarations that it is a non-nuclear state.

Mr. Udovenko made this, his second official visit to Canada, at the invitation of Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy.

Heavy snow on March 4 delayed the arrival of the Ukrainian foreign affairs minister's flight to Ottawa. As a result, a planned meeting with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had to be re-scheduled for the following day.

In 1994, the Ukrainian foreign affairs minister was a member of President Leonid Kuchma's delegation to Canada. That fall, Mr. Kuchma attended a special meeting devoted to Ukraine, which was organized in Winnipeg by the Group of Seven industrialized countries to help Ukraine gain financial footing.

In his March 5 talks with Mr. Axworthy, Mr. Udovenko discussed European security, the expansion of NATO and arms control.

Though Ukraine is not actively seeking membership in NATO, it is seeking a special agreement with the alliance. Mr. Udovenko said the Ukrainian government supports extending the organization's membership eastward. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic could enter the NATO alliance by 1999, if they are given the go-ahead at the NATO meeting scheduled for July in Madrid.

Mr. Udovenko said that Ukraine's Constitution and its membership in the Council of Europe has helped to ensure human rights protection. "Our membership in the council gives citizens the right to challenge decisions made at the executive or judicial levels in Ukraine," he said.

And, despite Ukraine's sluggish economy, Mr. Udovenko said there are several hopeful signs of a turnaround, including the introduction of the hryvnia last fall.

"For decades, we had no banking system," he said. "Our banks were state-run Soviet banks. Now that we have our own currency, we will be able to pursue alliances with other European countries. We are showing the world that we have moved from a centralized to a market-based economy."

Last year, trade between Canada and Ukraine totaled $53 million (about $40 million U.S.).

Mr. Udovenko also said the Ukrainian government is struggling to forge a "middle class" within the country's economy. "We lost any sense of middle-income earners following Stalin's policy of collectivization," he said.

President Kuchma is expected to pass a decree allowing Ukraine's State Property Fund to privatize through foreign investment. Last month, Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko told a Kyiv meeting of directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development that the government plans to offer shares in all major Ukrainian companies by June. Shares in at least 105 out of 228 companies are to be offered to foreign investors.

Although Ukraine has privatized small business, it has placed only half of about 17,000 medium and large enterprises into the hands of shareholders.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, an organization affiliated with The Economist magazine, Ukraine's economy is expected to grow by only 1 percentage point this year. Other former Soviet and Eastern European countries with similar forecasts of slow economic growth include Russia, Bulgaria, Kazakstan and Uzbekistan.

While trying to turn Ukraine's economy around, Mr. Udovenko said Ukrainians also have to change their attitudes. "When they're faced with privatizing, a lot of people say, 'What for?' After 70 years of Communist rule, they're still under the mentality that the state runs everything," he said.

During his brief stay in Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Udovenko also met with Governor General Romeo LeBlanc and had lunch with the speaker of the Senate, Gildas Molgat.

On March 6, Mr. Udovenko left for Winnipeg, where he was accompanied by Mr. Axworthy, who represents a local federal riding in the House of Commons.

In Manitoba's capital city, Mr. Udovenko met with Premier Gary Filmon and addressed a joint meeting of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce.

The foreign affairs minister returned to Ottawa on March 7 and took a flight to Washington, where he was to meet with another former ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine K. Albright, who is now the U.S. secretary of state.

| Home Page |