Ukraine no longer lists membership in NATO and EU as foreign policy goal (08/01/04)

Ukraine no longer lists membership in NATO and EU as foreign policy goal

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine confirmed on July 26 that it had changed its recently approved defense doctrine, omitting verbiage that had specifically stated that NATO and European Union membership were a central foreign policy priority. The wording was replaced with a more general statement that alludes to Ukraine's continued Euro-Atlantic integration.

The changes came after Ukraine failed to achieve any perceptible progress in its quest for membership in the two most important European institutions, during summits held separately by NATO and the EU in June. The defense doctrine had originally been approved on June 15 in preparation for the NATO summit.

During its Istanbul summit, NATO refused to consider a Membership Action Plan for Ukraine - the first step in the process toward membership - until the country showed that democratic changes, including notions of the rule of law, free and fair elections, and freedom of the press, had taken root.

As for the EU, it continued to refuse to recognize Ukraine as a free market economy, even though it has already extended such status to Russia. Romano Prodi, the head of the EU's executive body, the European Commission, expressly stated in the spring that Ukraine would never become an EU member.

The announcement in the defense doctrine changes came in Yalta, where Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma was hosting Russia's President Vladimir Putin during a Russian-Ukrainian economic summit, with who could be considered the captains of industry of both Russia and Ukraine in attendance.

Those present from the Ukrainian side included billionaire Renat Akhmetov, the chairman of System Capital Management, located in Donetsk; fellow billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, chairman of Interpipe, who is President Kuchma's son-in-law; and Hryhorii Surkis of Kyiv Dynamo, along with his partner, Viktor Medvedchuk, Mr. Kuchma's chief of staff.

Russian businessmen present included Vadym Alekperov, chairman of Lukoil, Oleksander Lebediev, chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom, and Petro Aven, president of Alpha Bank.

The conference was supposed to coordinate the strengthening of trade relations between Russia and Ukraine. Kyiv's and Moscow's political and business elite noted the progress that had been made in developing trade between the two countries. They also expressed strong support for a Eurasian common market, the Single Economic Space (SES), to include Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan and Belarus.

However, business talk turned to international politics with confirmation the same day that Ukraine had indeed opted out of an expressed commitment to join NATO and the EU by virtue of changes proposed by the National Security and Defense Council on July 6, which President Kuchma supported via a presidential edict signed July 15.

In Yalta, in response to journalists' queries as to why the information had not been made public earlier, various presidential press service spokespersons stated that the changes within the doctrine had been noted on the presidential administration website from the date the presidential decree was signed.

President Putin, generally restrained in his public comments, caused more international waves when he told the economic summit attendees during his presentation that intelligence operatives from Western governments for too long had attempted to derail closer relations between Russia and Ukraine.

"Their agents within our countries and outside are trying to discredit the integration of Russia and Ukraine in various ways," charged President Putin during his address to the economic summit.

He prefaced the statement by noting that "in unifying, [Ukraine and Russia] raise our competitiveness." Mr. Putin stated that the SES, the project to coordinate and unite the economies of Russia, Ukraine, Kazakstan and Belarus that he and Mr. Kuchma initiated in the spring of 2003, was the best way to make the region of the former Soviet Union economically competitive on a global scale. Mr. Putin stressed that the goal of the SES was economic, not political, integration. He also said he did not want an economic or political rift to develop between the region of the former Soviet Union and the West as the SES became a competitor of the EU.

"Russia and Ukraine should not set themselves against the West. Objectively, we are part of the world economic system," underscored Mr. Putin.

The Russian president also sought cooperation from Ukraine to jump the hurdles to WTO membership hand-in-hand wherever possible.

President Kuchma agreed with his Russian counterpart's assessment that increased trade had boosted the economies of both countries. During his own presentation Mr. Kuchma noted several times to the extent to which the recent infusion of Russian capital had spurred economic development in Ukraine, including the revival of Ukrainian oil refineries located in Lysychansk, Odesa and Kherson, and the Mykolaiv Bauxite Plant.

During a press conference following the summit, Mr. Putin pointed out that Russian companies doing business in Ukraine were legally registered as Ukrainian legal entities, which effectively made them Ukrainian firms, albeit with Russian ownership.

In his remarks to the summit Mr. Kuchma cited a 33 percent increase in trade between Ukraine and Russia in the first five months of this year, during a time when the Ukrainian economy was expanding at a rate of nearly 10 percent and the Russian economy at more than 7 percent.

"The dynamic development of trade and economic relations became possible to a large extent after an increase in contacts between the presidents and the heads of governments of Ukraine and Russia, as well as between the business sectors," explained Mr. Kuchma.

Mr. Kuchma emphasized again, as he has done ever since the idea for the SES arose, that the initial and central building block for a Eurasian common market would have to be a free-trade zone. He received vocal support from Mr. Putin, perhaps for the first time. Russia has agreed to a free-trade zone in principle but has been unwilling to develop specific methods by which to achieve it.

Most experts believe that getting Moscow to agree to a trade zone free of waivers will be the hardest aspect of breathing life into the SES project. During the summit, Mr. Kuchma suggested that the sides needed to agree on two initial steps: first, an accord on the principles for removal of indirect taxation, followed by a protocol on the gradual cancellation of a list of products that are currently awarded waivers from free trade.

Yet, what has caused the most stir, albeit little overriding concern, within the international community were the changes Ukraine quietly and unassumingly made to its defense doctrine at the beginning of July, after its efforts at closer ties with NATO and the EU were repudiated during summits in Istanbul and Brussels, respectively.

The EU representative in Kyiv, Reijo Kemppinen, said the decision by Ukraine would not alter relations between Brussels and Kyiv, inasmuch as the EU had no intention of offering Ukraine membership at the present time, reported Interfax-Ukraine.

But the announcement in Yalta had Ukraine's foreign policy and security apparatus back in Kyiv doing some quick political footwork. Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs Oleh Shamshur said during a hastily organized appearance before journalists the day after the Yalta summit that the changes were logical and even foreseen by Mr. Kuchma's remarks in Istanbul, during which the president noted that Ukraine was not prepared for entry into the North Atlantic Alliance.

Mr. Shamshur said that relations between NATO, the EU and Ukraine would remain as they currently were and negotiations would continue on Ukrainian membership in both structures. He also cast blame on NATO and the EU for not being more accommodating in accepting Ukraine into their folds.

"Amendments to the Ukrainian Defense Doctrine were made because the European Union and NATO are not prepared to set time limits for Ukraine's entry into those organizations," explained Mr. Shamshur.

Meanwhile, officials in Belarus, a European pariah for nearly a decade, welcomed the changes to Kyiv's military doctrine.

"For us, a country that has always said that it does not welcome NATO enlargement, this news is very positive," explained Maj. Gen. Sergei Bulygin, chief political officer within the country's Ministry of Defense, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

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