How Ukraine Might Blow Its Historic Opportunity

February 22, 2013 Topic: European UnionGlobal Governance Region: Ukraine

How Ukraine Might Blow Its Historic Opportunity

Kiev has a chance to move toward the European Union, but its political closure could prevent that.

The simultaneous imprisonment of another opposition leader, Yurii Lutsenko, Ukraine’s former interior minister, has been raising even more eyebrows among Western Ukraine watchers than the arrest of the former prime minister. In Tymoshenko’s case, at least, the court’s accusations had been grave—although they were not dealt with, as the EU argues, in a properly law-based court trial. In the case of Lutsenko, however, his sentence always appeared as grossly disproportionate to his supposed misdoings—even if they had all been true. The Ukrainian leadership has become a victim of its own propaganda: in its suppression of political opposition it has lost sight of any proportion, and talked itself into an alternate reality of EU-Ukraine relations.

While Ukraine has a unique chance with the scheduled signing of the agreement this year, it simultaneously faces enormous risks until the next presidential elections in 2015. Whether economic growth, financial stability, interethnic relations, energy security, social cohesion or relations with Russia, Ukraine will be confronted with daring challenges that may bring the country to the verge of collapse. For the nascent Ukrainian state to hold together in stormy times, a signed EU Association Agreement could provide a rallying point and glimpse of hope.

Ukraine’s European integration is, to one degree or another, supported by all major Ukrainian political forces, large swaths of the population and almost the entire intellectual elite. It would be sad—and, in a worst-case scenario, catastrophic—if the Ukrainians miss this opportunity to finally determine their destiny.

Dr. Andreas Umland is DAAD Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of “Kiev-Mohyla Academy,” a member of the Valdai Discussion Club, and editor of the book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society”.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Fry1989. CC BY-SA 3.0.