What ever happened to the image of human rights?

What happened to the clear and clean cut image of human rights I had when I was younger?

Although being without the Internet for 2 days was annoying, it certainly provided some time for reading real books, made of paper, that smell like books and feel like books and provided a glorious reminder of why I actually like the traditional tomes.  It also gave me time to sit and ponder a few things that seemed so very clear cut and cleanly defined when I was somewhat more youthful.

Human rights is one such area that appeared so simple to define, identify and support back then.

When I cast my mind back, people such as Vaclav Havel, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Nelson Mandela etc were all (obviously high profile) easy to identify with and understand the issues surrounding the inequality and persecution surrounding them.  That is true of some modern day examples of course, until recently Aung San Suu Kyi would be a prime case that meets the traditional identifiers and is easy to understand .  Andrei Sannikov in Belarus would be another.

However, it has all become somewhat more murky and in some cases rather unwholesome.  That is particularly so when we stop looking at individual cases and look at regional issues and national peoples.  Then add to that mix, the UN Charter and its uncomfortable fit with Right to Protect (R2P) when R2P progresses all the way up the scale to armed intervention.

Libya set a precedent that many feel (not just Russia and China on the UNSC) that severely overstepped the remit given.  Syria now bears the fruits of those who have misgivings that should Syria follow the Libyan R2P route, armed intervention will become the rule rather than the exception.  Thus at no cost should Syria become the next Libya is the argument.

Once R2P moves into some form of armed boots on the ground scenario, despite what many may think, it is quite probable that a limited R2P role becomes much harder to accomplish than an all-out armed intervention.  For example, humanitarian corridors and safe havens sound wonderful – but – what happens when your safe haven comes under mortar fire or sniper fire?  The immediate military response is to push out and force that firepower back thus either expanding that safe haven exponentially, or pushing out temporarily and then ceding that ground once again when returning to the agreed safe haven boundaries and awaiting the next time the mortar rounds are in-coming because the opposition have decided to take pot-shots from the formal boundaries.  Fish in a barrel?

Oh the dilemmas of not being able to lawfully act despite a moral legitimacy to do so!

We also have the statements from nations and structures like the EU relating to human rights whilst they are not exactly beacons of human rights excellence themselves.

If we take Ukraine, it is under immense pressure from the EU and US over Ms Tymoshenko (and others) over their human rights for example.  That would be the very same USA that is condemning Ukraine whilst Gitmo is roundly criticised internationally, renditions and back ops/prisons are under investigation by the Council of Europe, the death penalty is actively condemned and the support and arming of Bahrain continues despite the clear, obvious and on-going human rights abuses by the government of Bahrain supported and buttressed by the USA.  Amnesty International is hardly glowing about the USA record on human rights in its 2012 report.

It would be the same EU that is criticising Ukraine which the recently released Amnesty International report states “Too many people are falling through the gap the EU’s stirring rhetoric on human rights and their lack of implementation.  The EU’s actions have actually blunted its own human rights tools such as The Charter or non-discrimination laws.  It seems to go backwards rather than forwards.  All too often this makes the EU a decidedly toothless tiger.”  Not exactly a comforting statement for an EU which claims to have the “silver thread” of human rights running through all its foreign policy.

This prima facie hypocrisy is not new of course.  Even influential and very western friendly activists and dissidents such as Lilia Shevtsova have for many years been telling “The West” the best thing it can do for activists in Russia is to do as they tell others to do rather than preach like some pious clergyman to the masses, and then when the congregation is not looking, interfere with a choirboy.

The problem is, of course, that whilst no nation or structure can claim to have a perfect score when it comes to human rights, when it comes to telling others they are out of line, they act as though they do, immediately eroding the legitimacy of their statements.

Every time a nation or structure shouts from within its glass house at another over human rights, all those stones created by their own failures are returned with force undermining their (normally well intentioned and often justified) statements.

Another issue is that human rights seems to be an ever expanding area.  Whether that is mission creep for political ends or whether we as a global society deem far more things as fundamental human rights than ever before, I am not sure.

We all, each and every one of us have more sympathy with certain human rights (and human rights cases) than others.  If you want to light my blue touch paper and then stand well back as I go off on one, then human trafficking would be human rights issue that really gets me going.  For other people it is other areas within the ever broadening human rights arena.

All that being said, when human rights are being abused, things need to be said – even if your own recored is somewhat blemished.  In the pursuit of excellence, throwing out what is only good because it isn’t excellent would be a very foolish thing to do.

Still, the clear cut, clean and wholesome image of human rights is no longer as it was when I was younger – or maybe it was always such a murky, grubby image and I simply failed to see the bigger picture for what it was all those years ago.

Are there limits to democratic legitimacy? Ukraine’s Constitutional Assembly

How far and how oblique can a democratic mandate be before it loses legitimacy?

As regular readers of this blog will know, in 2010, at the request of Arseniy Yatseniuk (leader of the opposition party Front for Change), shortly after becoming president Viktor Yanukovych created a Constitutional Assembly tasked to examine and recommend amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution.

The chairmanship of this Constitutional Assembly was given to the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and is compromised of representatives from all political parties currently with MPs sitting in the RADA.  It is a long and labourious  task made longer and more labourious due to various opposition parties withdrawing, reentering the process cyclically in attempts to frustrate the process when they aren’t happy with the current government over other issues.  It is a joint committee lever they can pull that has some immediate effect.

Currently it is Arseniy Yatseniuk and his Front for Change party which have now withdrawn from the process.

Why?

One of the suggestions is that the Constitution be amended so that the President be elected by the members of the RADA and not by direct public voting as is currently the case.

Outrageous?  Unheard of? – Well I will return to that, but for now it is sufficient to note that currently, with 3 years before the next public presidential vote, the current president would come in 3rd behind Arseniy Yatseniuk and Yulia Tymoshenko respectively according to several public opinion polls.  However, should the ruling party retain its majority in the October elections and the constitution be amended before the next 2015 presidential election, the current incumbent would remain president in all likelihood.

As somebody who thinks another 5 years of Yanukovych or Tymoshenko would be a retrograde step for Ukraine, the fact Yatseniuk currently sits in 1st place if there was a presidential election tomorrow by public vote is quite encouraging.  It is also clear why Yatseniuk would not want any changes to the president being elected by direct public vote and has thus pulled out of the Constitutional Assembly effectively stalling its work once again.

So how oblique and how legitimate would a president be if voted into office, not by direct public vote, but by MPs who are voted into office by direct public vote?

Well, the German president isn’t directly voted into office by the public.  The German president is voted into office via the MPs of the Bundestag and an equal number of representatives from the 16 regions of Germany.  A major difference however, is that the German president has a largely ceremonial role and the governance of the country is parliamentary and not presidential – unlike Ukraine.

Are there any European systems where the presidents are not directly elected by the people but who have the power of the Ukrainian president to instigate the adoption of laws, set foreign and domestic policy, chastise directly elected MPs and be far more than ceremonial figureheads?

Well, the most powerful people in the EU are the EU commissioners and presidents who are responsible for introducing EU laws, directives, policy and bullying national elected leaders into towing the EU line.  None of these people are directly elected by the people of Europe but are appointed in a very similar fashion to that of Germany and the proposed changes for Ukraine.

Therefore, should Ukraine adopt the proposals (and I really hope it does not), it would be following a very European model – that of the European Commission – who are extremely powerful and yet never face a public vote and never hold a direct public mandate for the office they hold despite the power that comes with that office.

Now if more than half a billion people across the EU allow themselves, and their directly elected representatives, to be dictated to by the powerful and rather oblique democratic legitimacy held by those within the European Commission, (and those in the European Commission claim to have democratic legitimacy via being elected by elected representatives), should the people of Ukraine have anything to be concerned about?

After all, should Ukraine ever join the EU, its elected leaders will be lectured, bullied and coerced by those within the European Commission the people of Ukraine (or any other EU nation) never had the opportunity to vote for.  Does it therefore matter if the Ukrainian president is appointed via the same stretch of democratic legitimacy as well?

My own view? – Well that has always been that Ukraine should not join the EU (at least under the current dysfunctional, wasteful, overly bureaucratic, cumbersome and ever increasingly centralised model).  The DCFTA and AA is as far as it needs to go when it eventually gets there.  Therefore my view on the democratic legitimacy of a Ukrainian president is that it can only come via a direct public vote, as hopefully that office will never become in part (or in full) subservient to European Commissioners who legitimacy is oblique, via Ukraine actually joining the EU.

EBRD to take on long term currency risks in Ukraine

Well here is a bit of good news for Ukrainian entrepreneurs, SME’s and big business alike.

The EBRD is going to credit Ukrainian banks in foreign currency on the proviso that the Ukrainian banks lend to Ukrainian businesses in local currency.  A case of if you don’t lend the Hyrivnia, we won’t load you up with foreign currency reserves it seems.

This declared strategy from the EBRD would seem, prima facie, very good for Ukraine.

To what end and why is the EBRD prepared to share the currency conversion risks on a 50/50 basis, when Ukraine can turn on or off the Hryvnia printing presses and drastically devalue the Hryvnia overnight?   I am already anticipating the devaluation of the Hryvnia around the turn of the year.

Maybe the EBRD gets half the spread on the currency transactions and is using those millions of $ a day in the exchange racket of Ukraine to bail out Greece?

Maybe with all those additional Euros flying about after the printing presses went into overdrive to recapitalise the EU banks, putting the excesses into the Ukrainian market and getting them out of the Eurozone monetary cycle works for those economic wonders in Brussels/Frankfurt.  Maybe it doesn’t.  Maybe if I asked 3 economists why the EBRD is doing this I will get 3 very different answers.

Bankers, economists out there – why would the EBRD be doing this (on the presumption there are no nasty little clauses in the small print)?

Odessa Tourism Festival 18 – 20 May – UK AWOL

OK.  Today I leave the macro-geopolitical and policy realm relating to Ukraine and the neighbourhood and go local.  Namely the Odessa Travel Festival, the bulk and most public part takes place along Deribasovskaya (which is the nominal pedestianised main street in the city centre).

As always in the warmer months, the cafes and restaurants expand from their premises and spread out over the pavements with comfy chairs, tables and parasols to give life to the mañana feel of the city when the hot summer sun begins to camp here.

And what more a pleasant a way to pass a few hours than with a cappuccino  and a cigar watching the beautiful and not so beautiful wandering around the city centre.

What better place to place the Odessa Travel Festival on a hot and sunny day than Deribasovskaya, a street always  brimming with people with time on their hands and money in their pockets?

The point of the Odessa Travel Festival?  Well to promote both domestic and European travel, of course, but also to promote things like language schools, education abroad, and generally encourage Ukrainians (or at least those in Odessa) to think of themselves as “Europeans” and by doing so entice them along the “European path” to values, cultures and people to people contact.  (European Commissioner Stefan Fule would indeed be very pleased with such a strategy, as would the national tourist boards of those taking part.)

Last year more than 10,000 people from Odessa visited the festival.  Approximately 1% of the population of the entire city and therefore quite probably having a small stand for those nations seeking to attract tourists, a worthy and very minor cost.

Now Odessa is not the biggest city in Ukraine.  It is in fact only the 4th biggest.  It is though a tourist destination itself receiving just over 1 million tourists each year.  A ratio of approximately 1 tourist per year to each local,  which is none too shabby considering Odessa does so very little to advertise itself as a tourist destination (and what is does do is disjointed and really rather poor).

The city is also home to about 20 consulates and a few honorary consuls for good measure.   Sadly, the UK does not have a consulate here or indeed an Honorary Consul despite 20 other nations considering Odessa as worthy of one or the other.  An issue I will return to later in this entry.

Anyway, with nothing better than to paint the walls at home, I decided to delay that task until the weekend and wander off and see just who was taking part in this festival organised by the regional administration.

There were numerous other regional oblasts in attendance,  Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk etc luring those from Odessa to visit them and spend money there.

Also present were stalls from Greece, with my old acquaintance Alexandros Ikonomou, Head Counselor of the Trade & Economic Department of the Greek Consulate in Odessa, managing to sneak into this photograph, looking officious as always.  (We have both attended many of the same functions, ranging from the official opening of envelopes, to the more grandiose of functions, although though quite why I am invited and attend such things remains a mystery to me.)

Germany also had a presence.

So did the Czech Republic.

And Bulgaria.

As well as Azerbaijan.

And Turkey.

Not forgetting Italy.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

Where is the UK stall?  -  There wasn’t one!  Where is the British Council encouraging the youth of Ukraine to study in the UK?  - It wasn’t there.  Who was giving advice about IELTS and UK Visas and tourism?  - There was none.  Where was the Union Jack amongst all the international flags and national nick-nacks on display?  There was none.

Why?

Do 10,000 people from Odessa manage to find and enter the British Council office on Admiralsky each year?  I doubt it!  Is part of the British Council’s mission to spread the good word about Blighty or not?  Do the people who work in the British Council and face the Ukrainian public on a daily basis have an in-depth knowledge of the UK education system or tourist industry?  I doubt it as they are Ukrainian.

To be honest, if it wasn’t for my boy having just been offered a place at Trevelyn College at Durham University this October, I wouldn’t know about the application process, IELTS courses and examinations and bureaucratic rigors involved in him studying abroad.

Why does the UK Ambassador in Kyiv regale the Ukrainian public who may read his blog with tales of how good a UK university education is, how essential the English language is, and then there is no presence from the UK at such an event which advertises the fact that education is part of the travel festival perimeters and has done so for months on the Odessa City Website?

I mean literally, the only British thing present was me!

Does the 4th biggest city in Ukraine not warrant public UK participation when the total expenditure for a stall and UK nick-nacks would cost no more than a few hundred quid for the entire 3 days?  Is it some part of the UK FCO plan to have as limited a UK presence outside Kyiv as is humanly possible?

I mean seriously?  For £100 I could have sat there for 3 days handing out horrible cheap pens that will stop working within 2 or 3 days with the Union Jack (probably the wrong way up) printed on the side.  I could have handed out UK tourist literature and spoke from tourist experience of everywhere from Edinburgh Castle to Stonehenge, from the Roman baths of Bath to Winchester Cathedral and everything in between.

I could have entertained the passing interested Ukrainians considering sending their children to the UK to study with stories from the student union bars of my youth, just how to apply, where to seek out the IELTS tests, what documentation is required to support any Visa application for the UK and a myriad of UK anecdotes and tall tales as a bonus.

All for a cost far less than an average decent bottle of red in the Ambassador’s wine cellar in Kyiv.

In fact, if asked nicely, I would probably have done it for free.  After all, if it became a regular annual event to semi-officially fly my nations flag  in foreign climes (so to speak) at Odessa’s annual tourism festival (or other things), something like a “thanks very much” letter from whoever is Foreign Secretary in 10 years time, to go with the other official commendations and gongs I have for bravery and/or cleverness under pressure, or both stupidity and recklessness on behalf of The Crown with fortunate and successful outcomes, would be a nice addition and recognition enough should I ever undertake such a role over a prolonged period for free.

Instead, I hang my head in shame that not a single representative of my nation can be bothered to turn up to a festival that not only promotes European tourism, culture and people to people contact, but also the very lucrative business of educating foreigners at UK higher education establishments in a major Ukrainian city.  That is made all the more disgraceful by the fact that the UK Embassy and Consulate in Kyiv is not the smallest UK FCO presence around the globe.

Poor show by the UK FCO and British Council all round.

EBRD invests in Ukrainian wind

Although you won’t remember, in March 2011, I told you about Ukraine’s first wind farm.  Yes I know it was a very short post, but as it said, it was a start.

Well since then alternative energy has progressed somewhat in Ukraine.  Solar, hydroelectric bio-fuelled  CHPs and wind.  A lot of investment is going into alternative energy production, although not enough to prevent the next generation of civil nuclear power facilities being built.

In fact a lot of money is going into energy in Ukraine, be it alternative, energy efficiency, next generation nuclear, domestic oil and gas exploration and production, as well as Shell and Chevron yesterday being confirmed as tender winners for shale extraction in the west and east of Ukraine.

Of course there are environmental and ecological concerns no matter how energy is produced.  5000 exploratory wells anticipated between Shell and Chevron looking for shale gas, there is a major concern over huge areas of prime agricultural land being used for bio-fuel production at great cost to the soil,  damage to ecosystems with hydroelectric production, flora and fauna damage via huge solar farms spreading across acres of land etc.

Quite simply there is no such thing a zero impact energy production any which way it is produced.  Anybody who says otherwise is a liar.  Even the component parts used to create alternative energy systems are manufactured using conventional energy in buildings constructed by and using materials creating with, conventional energy.  They all have a massive energy legacy to repay prior to actually being beneficial to the planet.

If that sounds like I know what I am talking about it is because I do.  I am a qualified civil engineer and have written numerous ISO 14001 environmental policies, environmental risk management programmes and audit procedures.

Anyway, back to Ukrainian alternative energy, and in particular – wind.

There is no doubt that Ukraine has huge potential in alternative energy production.  Anybody who doubts that need simply follow the projects and acquisitions of DTEK, a company owned by the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov.  Whilst he is best known for being an oligarch whose riches comes from metal production and also being the owner of Shakhtar Donetsk FC, only the willfully blind would not have noticed his serious investments into all areas of energy production over the past 3 or 4 years.  Alternative energy is no exception when it comes to Mr Akhmetov’s energy investment portfolio.

It is therefore no surprise to find that the EBRD in conjunction with the EU’s Clean Technology Fund have decided to pour Euro 9.5 million and Euro 3.8 million respectively (Euro 13.3 million in total) into a Ukrainian/Italian company called Eco-Optima.  The loan is over a 10 year period and payable in two tranches.

Eco-Optima intend to build a wind farm in Starry Sambir (near Lviv) that will consist of 5 wind turbines with an anticipated total annual production of 25.5 GWh.  That is enough for just over 10,000 homes annual useage by my rough calculation, and also reduce carbon emissions by approximately 30,000 per year (in comparison to non-nuclear conventional energy production if we discount any energy legacy involved in production of the technology).

Maybe more encouragingly than anything I have written so far though, is that it is, to my knowledge, the first EBRD investment into Ukrainian wind – ever – which is a positive thing in and of itself!

An appetite for evidence – Azarov offer to the EU

If you were offered access to the evidence in a case you decry publicly as flawed, would you take it?

In the numerous and robust condemnations over the case of Yulia Tymoshenko, every EU and sovereign statement has been to decry the due process of her trial leading to her conviction for misuse of office over the signing of the economically calamitous 2009 gas deal with Russia.

Fair enough and quite right.

None however, not a single politician or diplomat from the EU or the composite sovereign nations have stated she is actually innocent – a fact that has not been lost on the Ukrainian public I can assure you.

Much has been reported by the MSM from the 15th annual EU/Ukraine summit in Brussels on 15/16 May very much following the EU robust line over due process and political persecution.  What is noticeable by its absence however was the invitation of Prime Minister Azarov to any European lawyers to attend Tymoshenko’s next appeal hearing at the highest court in Ukraine.

“The process of Cassation on Tymoshenko’s cause is now beginning. We are ready to invite the representatives of legal services of the European countries to this process that they have got acquainted with the materials, studied this process and heard the arguments.”

Well blimey!  You would think that this is an invitation that any legal professional from within the EU with an interest in Ukraine could not refuse, particularly as they have almost 5 weeks to get up to speed if they start right away.  You would also think it would actually feature predominantly in the MSM and yet it gets hardly a mention despite the implications for EU/Ukrainian relations.

After all, whilst the EU rightly complains about the standard of due process, there is also a need to examine the actual guilty verdict, in and of itself, based on the evidence, in order to win over the Ukrainian public opinion that the conviction itself is erroneous.  The process maybe flawed but the result may have been right – or wrong.  To employ a rather poor analogy, is the journey more important than the destination arrived at if that destination is the right one?

The issue the EU has, is that it is failing miserably at conveying  convincingly to the general Ukrainian public, (and not a room full of politicians, lawyers and academics), that the manner of her trial is more important than the actual verdict.

If the EU takes up this offer in its entirety, it would then be in a position having gotten acquainted with the materials, studied the process and heard the arguments, to announce loudly to the world, not only was the due process faulty but that the evidence suggests she is innocent as well.  (Or maybe a more politically correct insufficient evidence to be certain of her guilt.)

A chance to bury the current authorities in a tsunami of political persecution propaganda legitimised by the EU’s own lawyers having had access to the materials and arguments and coming to an innocent verdict, and thus standing a far better chance of winning over Ukrainian public opinion that she has been wronged for political reasons alone.

The question is now whether the EU or some lawyers within the EU of senior stature (preferably with an EU mandate to examine the evidence) will take up this offer?  The answer is yes.

But does the EU have the appetite to actually examine the evidence and be forced to conclude the guilt or innocence of Ms Tymoshenko, thus supporting or deriding the Ukrainian court decision (rather than just the process)?  Will the EU lawyer simply study the process and not the evidence?

Does the EU dare to look at the evidence of prosecution and defence alike?

Will it shrink from this opportunity, despite the fact it could add tremendous ammunition to their projected free Yulia campaign within Ukraine itself?  Is the EU worried that the evidence will point to her guilt and undermine their almost  traction-less  argument over the due process issue being more important than her innocence or guilt  with hoy polloy of Ukrainian society?

Would it be so terribly bad if the evidence is assessed by the EU as is being offered, and should it comprehensively prove her guilt, for the EU to state that, whilst continuing to deride the process?  It is after all a faulty process that every Ukrainian can be subjected too and thus that point is hardly diminished – regardless of whether the EU concludes she is guilty or innocent.

Does the European Commission have the backbone to actually come to a public conclusion over her guilt or innocence and convey that to the Ukrainian public?  Probably not, and if not, then do not be surprised if Ukrainian public opinion remains with the undercurrent that she’s probably guilty whether the due process met EU norms or not!

This will be fascinating to watch both literally and by way of what the EU hopes to achieve and ultimately does or doesn’t achieve in the court of Ukrainian public opinion.

European Council (of Foreign Ministers) – Ukraine football boycott

As many of you dear readers will know, the EU works on the principle of Dante’s many circles of hell, the workings of which I have outlined for you previously.

Yesterday on 14th May, the European Council (which comprises of Ministers from the sovereign nations that make up the EU met under the chairmanship of Herman Von Rumpoy and Baroness Ashton) with a fairly lengthy agenda upon which  Ukraine was listed.  Here is that agenda.

Whether discussing Ukraine during lunch aids or hinders the digestive system, who knows?

Anyway, given some very stern and robust views from certain Member States and other with more tolerant views, quite how the anticipated press releases would read was somewhat unknown.  The wording of said press releases have to be agreed by all concerned after all.

Prior to the meeting, Carl Bildt was talking sense again.  Of course I would say that.  I have said the football is the wrong stick to hit Ukraine with given the need for EU personalities to interact directly with the Ukrainian people.  As He rightly states, the future of Ukraine with regards to the EU should rest upon how the elections in October are run and then the situation duly and impartially assessed.  After that when the undoubted cheating will surface, then condemn the current leadership.  It is after all not the number of electoral violations, (they occur in every nation),   but the nature of said violations.

This, however, is what we got just before lunch regarding a boycott, which Baroness Ashton fully supports.

Much later in the afternoon, Carl Bildt tweeted  “EU is strong on urgency of the rule of the law as well as free and fair elections in Ukraine. Only that will truly open the door to Europe.” – Hardly a telling sign that a consensus for a boycott as championed by the European Commission had been achieved,  Yet another disunited front from the 27 EU sovereigns upon the horizon?

No.  There seems to be unity.  At least unity amongst the European Council where none present stated they would stay away from the Euro 2012 in Ukraine.  That is not to say all will come of course, each nations will decide individually no doubt, but an EU wide boycott as called for by the European Commission?  Apparently not – as confirmed by Baroness Ashton in this clip (4.37).

The difference, as I have written before, the European Commission represents no nation taking part.  Sovereign heads of government must answer to voters if they are not there to support the national teams.

As I have repeatedly stated, this is the wrong stick to beat the current government of Ukraine with from amongst a very limited bag of sticks held by the EU.

Now let us see what comes of the 2 day EU-Ukraine summit led by Prime Minister Azarov over today and tomorrow.  The language of the press releases will be interesting not only in what they say – but also what they don’t!

The show must go on – EU/Ukraine relations continue

Well, with all the bluster and brinkmanship that makes the MSM headlines, we could all be forgiven for thinking that there is no constructive dialogue or movement between the EU and Ukraine.

Of course, more quietly and without the instantly recognisable names, the show goes on.  The show goes on because the show must go on.

It is so very rare that there is complete disengagement and that is hardly likely that there will ever be complete disengagement between the EU and Ukraine for so many reasons, it would be pointless to try and list them all.  Suffice to say Ukraine provides or poses serious immigration (more as a transit route than domestic population), security and trade issues to name but three from an EU perspective.

Geographically, Ukraine matters to the EU.  Geopolitically, the EU has invested far too much effort in the EaP to see the biggest nation involved wander off into the sunset.  It may very well be that the EU has no intention of signing or ratifying the Association Agreement whilst the current government is in power and that it will wait for a different government to take power before it does so, but it must also do enough to keep Ukraine anchored in the EU somehow and not allow it to drift back Eastwards.

Common sense when all is said and done.

Thus, whilst the political celebrities and well known names sling mud at each other, the technocrats, diplomats, civil servants and more junior politicians have to quietly remain very much engaged to prevent Ukraine drifting away and the EaP from becoming yet another very expensive EU farce in the near term.

In short, enough has to be done, and minor deals made, to insure the near term issues of the day do not scupper the long term objectives when warmer political climates may present themselves.

As is always the case, in order to keep an empirical eye on those many small and individually weak, but accumulatively strong threads being cast in both directions, we must look past the MSM headlines and bluster to find the important work of the boys and girls in the boiler rooms of the EU and Ukraine that get little attention.

This can take the form of small deals here and there, or formal meetings that generally won’t get any MSM attention, such as the meeting last week between European Trade Minister Karl De Gucht and Ukraine’s Economic Development & Trade Minister Petro Poroshenko.

In a nutshell, at this meeting the EU noted positive changes in Ukraine with regards to deregulation in the business environment.  The end result being that on Ukrainian invitation, the European Commission will participate in a platform unimaginatively named “Dialogue on the business climate.”  The purpose of this platform is to make thorough assessments that are occurring in the Ukrainian business climate, from issues such as deregulation to public procurement procedures.

On its own, it is a weak link.  However, when added to about fifty existing other strands (of varying strength) it becomes somewhat more robust and far easier to keep direct, quiet and meaningful dialogue going, whilst the headliners put on a completely different show for the MSM.

Keep your eyes on the linage ads and small print as well as the MSM headlines for a more wholesome view of this relationship as it is the long term issues and not today’s headlines that really matter.  The issues of today will pass sooner or later.  The major long term issues and dilemmas that Ukraine presents to the EU have not changed at all.