[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: CT; LAT; AP (2); VOA; KP; EDM; RFE/RL; OSCE

[Deychak, Orest]

Chicago Tribune

 

Agency bolsters case for Stalin genocide; Kiev declares archive proves
Soviet leaders set off 1932-33 famine, killing millions 

24 July 2008

Chicago Final

14

KIEV, UKRAINE

Ukraine on Wednesday blamed Soviet leaders for a famine that killed
millions of people in 1932-33 and published documents it said
"unequivocally" proved its case -- part of its campaign to get the
tragedy recognized as genocide.

The national security service published archive documents it said prove
that Soviet leader Josef Stalin and his subordinates were responsible
for the famine.

The scale of the death toll is contested; some historians believe 3.5
million perished in what is known in Ukraine as "Holodomor," or "death
by hunger." Ukraine's leaders say up to 10 million died.

The issue has become a sore point in Ukraine's uneasy relations with
Russia.

The documents included orders to punish those resisting collectivization
and withholding agricultural products as well as details on campaigns to
root out Ukrainian nationalist organizations.

Los Angeles Times

 

World Briefing / UKRAINE; Bid to halt work at mass grave site 

24 July 2008

A-7

A Jewish group asked the Ukrainian government to stop construction on
the site of a grave containing the remains of an estimated 26,000
victims of the Holocaust.

The Jewish community in Odessa says a developer has begun building what
it believes will be a shopping mall on the site. When construction
workers began digging, they found bones, skulls and children's toys,
said Avrohom Wolf, chief rabbi for Odessa and southern Ukraine. He said
the builder had removed all the remains it dug out and said he had no
clue where to search for them. Wolf would not name the company, saying
he hoped to find a solution to the controversy.

The victims were executed in the fall of 1941, shortly after German
troops invaded the Soviet Union, according to Wolf. The plot of barren
land not far from the city center was marked by several Jewish monuments
but not officially labeled a cemetery.

AP

 

Ukrainian prosecutors: no suspects in 4-year probe into president's
dioxin poisoning 

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

23 July 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - After investigating for nearly four years,
Ukrainian prosecutors acknowledged Wednesday they don't have a single
suspect in President Viktor Yushchenko's dioxin poisoning.

The announcement comes a day after Yushchenko was questioned by
prosecutors a second time and hinted the investigation would produce
"very unpleasant" surprises.

Yuriy Boichenko, spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, told The
Associated Press that investigators have so far failed to identify any
suspects -- comments that raise questions about the effectiveness of the
probe.

Yushchenko, then an opposition presidential candidate, fell gravely ill
during the 2004 election campaign and was later diagnosed with massive
dioxin poisoning, which left his face disfigured.

The president claims he knows who masterminded the crime but refuses to
name names. He accuses Russia of refusing to extradite key figures in
the case or provide Russian-made dioxin samples for tests.

Many here point the finger at Russia, because Yushchenko was running
against a Kremlin-backed candidate and because Russia is one of the few
countries that produces the dioxin of the formula found in Yushchenko's
body.

 

AP

 

Political, religious battles loom between Ukraine, Russia over Orthodox
baptism celebration 

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

24 July 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Solemn hymns and prayers will resonate in
golden-domed Orthodox cathedrals across Ukraine on Friday to mark the
1020th anniversary of this region's conversion to Christianity.

But the sonorous sounds may be drowned out by the din of a fierce
political battle.

Ukrainian officials are determined to use the events to lobby for
autonomy for the local church from Russia, while the dominant Moscow
Patriarchate will fight to retain influence over this mostly Orthodox
country of 46 million.

For Ukrainian leaders, recognition of the Ukrainian Orthodox church as
Moscow's equal would mark a significant step in their drive to assert
independence and shed centuries-long Russian influence. That effort
gained strength after the 2004 Orange Revolution, which moved Ukraine
away from Moscow and closer to the West.

"Ukraine is an independent state like Bulgaria or Georgia, and it is
normal for it to have its own church," said Anatoliy Kolodny, head of
the religion studies department at the National Academy of Sciences.
"There is nothing strange in that."

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the world's top
Orthodox spiritual leader based in Istanbul, Turkey, will attend the
ceremonies and could support the autonomy of the Ukrainian church,
despite Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II's efforts to thwart the
move.

But any sudden decision by Bartholomew could create a major split among
the world's 250 million Orthodox believers and set off fierce battles
over parishes and valuable church property inside Ukraine, with some
priests siding with Moscow and others with Kiev.

"Were this decision to be made today, it would lead to another schism in
the church," said Andrei Zolotov, chief editor of the Russia Profile
magazine and an expert on Orthodox church affairs.

Recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian church could also sever
one of the oldest links between the two neighboring countries, which
both draw their identity from the 988 A.D. Christianization of Kievan
Rus, a medieval state that was a forerunner of modern-day Ukraine,
Russia and Belarus.

The Slavic world's conversion to Christianity began when prince
Volodymyr marched his servants into Kiev's Dnieper River to be baptized
1,020 years ago.

Efforts to win autonomy have already split the Ukrainian church. Two
breakaway churches have set themselves up since the 1991 Soviet collapse
-- the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, whose self-declared
Patriarch Philaret has been excommunicated by Alexy as a renegade, and
its splinter, the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, also unrecognized.

Both churches are smaller than the Russian-affiliated church, which
claims up to 28 million believers here.

The two breakaway churches have attempted to unite in hope of winning
recognition from Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. But so far
these efforts have failed.

President Viktor Yushchenko, a devout Orthodox believer, has supported
Philaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, visiting
his church on religious holidays with family and allies. Experts say
Yushchenko, who has hung portraits of himself with Bartholomew all over
the Ukrainian capital, has been lobbying the patriarch to recognize a
united breakaway church as a lawful autonomous church.

Another scenario Ukrainian leaders could be aiming for is to have
Bartholomew recognize the Ukrainian church which now answers to Moscow
as independent. Under this plan, the church would later absorb the two
rebel churches.

That could be tempting for Bartholomew, who is eager to boost his global
clout and is jostling for influence with the powerful Moscow
Patriarchate, the biggest Orthodox church in the world claiming some 95
million believers, Zolotov said.

As the religious celebrations approached this week, tensions grew. Both
sides blamed each other for trying to sabotage the events, scheduled for
Friday through Sunday.

Alexy of the Moscow church was accused of asking other Orthodox leaders
not to attend the celebrations in Kiev, while his subordinates in Kiev
complained that they were being ignored and the holiday spoiled by
politics.

Both sides can be blamed for mixing religion with politics. At political
rallies priests from both churches often bless activists and voice
support for candidates. The Moscow Patriarchate recently held a
ceremonial procession in Kiev, praying that Ukraine will not be accepted
into NATO.

Most experts believe that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will eventually
gain the same independence as Orthodox churches have in other
predominantly Orthodox countries. The only unknown, they say, is how
abrupt the split will be.

"In the historical perspective, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church must gain
autocephaly -- a full canonical independence -- the question is only
when and how it will happen," Zolotov said.

 

VOA Ukrainian television Interview with Rep. Christopher H. Smith,
former Chairman and current ranking member, U.S. Helsinki Commission 

http://www.voanews.com/ukrainian/2008-07-23-voa3.cfm

Helsinki Commission website:  www.csce.gov  For Ukraine page or any OSCE
country of interest, click on the map.

 

Kyiv Post

Op-ED


Leaders lack will to root out corruption


Jul 23 2008 

Widespread corruption still hobbles Ukraine. Beyond rhetoric, little is
being done to reduce it.

Widespread corruption still hobbles Ukraine. Beyond rhetoric, little is
being done to reduce it. As Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko notes,
corruption has enveloped the entire higher structures of the Ukrainian
state.

The Orange Revolution, like other democratic revolutions in Serbia and
Georgia, were largely propelled by popular anger at high-level
corruption and the accumulation of disproportionate wealth by a small
group of oligarchs. Little has been done to combat this phenomenon.
Business has increased its influence over politics.

Ukraine's Orange elites remain divided. President Victor Yushchenko
continues to act in the manner of his predecessor, Leonid Kuchma, in
undertaking a mainly cosmetic campaign against corruption. The president
established a working group. But it means little, as Kuchma had many
similar gestures and committees.

What is fundamental to combat corruption is political will and European
Union external support, neither of which Ukraine possesses.

The president's blocking of the government's anti-corruption policies
brings forth a sense of deja vu? vu. It has the hallmarks of Kuchma's
blocking of then-Deputy Prime Minister Tymoshenko's anti-corruption
campaign in the energy sector during the 2000-2001 Yushchenko
government. Recent examples show the president's hindrance of the
nascent, but real, elements of the government's campaign against
corruption.

Earlier this summer, the president sided with the Party of
Regions-dominated Crimean parliament against Interior Minister Yuriy
Lutsenko's campaign against organized crime on the peninsula. Many of
the corrupt officials and organized crime groups use the Party of
Regions as their krysha, or roof.

The president also blocked the appointment of the acting head of the
Anti-Monopoly Committee after it began to investigate the monopolist
position of a chicken producer, Nasha Riaba, reportedly owned by Ihor
Tarasyuk. Tarasyuk is a close ally of Yushchenko and heads the
Presidential Department of Affairs.

Then there are the clashes over the corrupt energy intermediary
RosUkrEnergo. Recently, leaders of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and
Moldova (GUAM), gathered for a regional summit in Kyiv, signed documents
on an Azeri-Georgian-Ukrainian energy corridor that promised
"transparency."

How is the West to take this promise seriously when the president does
not support transparency in the Ukrainian-Russian energy relationship?

The example of post-communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe,
such as Romania and Bulgaria, tells us that reducing corruption requires
two factors: domestic political will and external support.

Both of these factors came together after 1999 in Romania and Bulgaria.
Both countries underwent, like Ukraine, corrupt transitions in the
1990s, hijacked by former communist elites, whether post-communist
socialist parties in Romania and Bulgaria or centrist parties in
Ukraine. In 1996 and 1997, respectively, the Romanian and Bulgarian
socialists received a major shock when they lost elections to reformist
forces. Although fractured and inept, these reformist forces forced the
socialists to transform into more authentic social democratic parties by
battling corruption and supporting Euro-Atlantic integration. When they
returned to power in 2000-2001, the transformed Romanian and Bulgarian
socialists were given the external assistance of the European Union that
offered them conditional membership in 2007.

Such a shock happened to Ukraine's centrists in 2004 when Victor
Yanukovych lost the election. Yanukovych went for a long sauna to Moscow
and rich Rinat Akhmetov went on a long holiday to Monaco. But the
Yushchenko administration never used his massive revolutionary
popularity and, instead, actually intervened in the defense of
Yanukovych and Akhmetov. The president kept the circus clown, Svyatoslav
Piskun, as prosecutor longer than he did Tymoshenko as prime minister.

Romania and Bulgaria's 63rd position in 1999 in Transparency
International's corruption index has gradually improved. Ukraine's
position was similar to Romania and Bulgaria in 1999, at 75th place, but
dived to 122nd in Kuchma's last year in office in 2004.

Ukraine's 118th place in 2007 reflects the fact that little progress has
been achieved in the struggle against corruption since Yushchenko came
to power three and half years ago.

Ukraine lacks important factors that existed in Romania and Bulgaria.

The Ukrainian elite aren't interested combating corruption among its
ranks. Only three elites have been imprisoned and all of these were
abroad, one still in California and two who have since been released
from Germany. Tymoshenko remains one of a handful of Ukraine's elites to
be imprisoned inside Ukraine, albeit for only one month.

External EU support for future membership is linked to, among other
policies, a thorough overhaul of the judicial system. This membership
inducement has been crucial in creating the political will in Romania
and Bulgaria to combat corruption.

Unfortunately, the EU has not changed its unwelcoming stance towards
Ukrainian membership since the Orange Revolution. The free trade
agreements under negotiation do not include a membership offer.

The four years since the Orange Revolution have shown that the emergence
of political will and the inducement of EU membership are needed for
genuine success to be achieved against corruption.

Romania and Bulgaria showed how well these two elements can work.
Additionally, until suspect members of Ukraine's elite face criminal
charges - rather than invitations to join philanthropic charities - the
nation will remain a highly corrupt place, with little improvement in
democratization and rule of law.

Taras Kuzio is a research associate at the Institute for European,
Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University in
Washington, D.C. He can be reached at tkuzio at rogers.com.

 

Eurasia Daily Monitor

July 23, 2008

YUSHCHENKO, TYMOSHENKO LOCK HORNS OVER OIL PIPELINE

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to approve using
the Odesaa-Brody pipeline for pumping Caspian oil to the Pryvat Group's
refineries. The pipeline, Odessa-Brody, is currently used by Russian oil
companies in the reverse direction, Brody-Odessa. President Viktor
Yushchenko's team is accusing Tymoshenko of disregarding national
interests and even treason. Tymoshenko accuses her opponents of
corruption.

The pipeline Odessa-Brody was completed in 2001 to pump Caspian oil to
Ukrainian and Polish refineries. It was part of plans devised under
then- President Leonid Kuchma to diminish Ukraine's dependence on
Russian energy resources. Ukraine, however, could not obtain oil for it
from Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan as it had hoped, although the European
Union and the United States supported the project politically. Lacking
Caspian oil, the Odessa-Brody pipeline since 2004 has been serving
TNK-BP, LUKoil, and other Russian companies, pumping their oil in the
reverse direction, to Odessa, where it is loaded onto tankers for
export.

Kyiv never abandoned the original plan for Odessa-Brody. At the end of
June, Yushchenko and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev agreed that a
certain amount of oil would be transported to Odessa and pumped through
the pipeline for testing (Interfax-Ukraine, June 30).

Tymoshenko forbade government officials to attend a meeting at the
presidential secretariat on July 16, at which it was planned to agree on
conditions for Caspian oil transportation via Odessa-Brody in the
original north-western direction. UkrTransNafta - the state-controlled
operator of Ukraine's trunk pipelines - was supposed to sign at this
meeting a contract with Milbert Ventures, which is registered in the
British Virgin Islands and is linked to the Dnipropetrovsk-based Pryvat
group (Kommersant Ukraine, July 18).

Yushchenko's envoy for international energy projects, Bohdan Sokolovsky,
announced on July 17 that agreements had been ready for signing at the
preceding day's meeting. Specifically, 5 million tons of Caspian oil
were to be supplied to the Halychyna and Naftokhymyk Prykarpattya
refineries in western Ukraine, and another 3 million tons to Central
European countries, over the next two years. Pryvat controls those two
Ukrainian refineries, which have been short of crude for processing
during the past year or so.

Sokolovsky accused Tymoshenko of disrupting the agreements reached with
suppliers in Azerbaijan and potential consumers in Central Europe. "This
is shocking," said Sokolovsky. "Those actions [by Tymoshenko] can be
qualified as treason. I am sure that sooner rather than later, even if
we have to gather at the National Security and Defense Council for that,
we shall secure implementation of this project, which is in the national
interest of Ukraine" (Liga.net, July 17). The head of Yushchenko's
secretariat, Viktor Baloha, warned Tymoshenko against interfering in
energy security matters. "European energy policy and Ukraine's role in
it is at stake," Baloha warned (Ukrainska Pravda, July 17)

Tymoshenko, however, dismissed the contracts proposed by Yushchenko's
secretariat to pump Caspian oil via Odessa-Brody as "another illegal
scheme masterminded by the presidential secretariat". She said that the
contracts were to be signed with "off-shore companies" that had "nothing
to do with international projects." She also drew parallels between this
project and the controversial deals of the presidential team with the
RosUkrEnergo and Vanco companies (Interfax-Ukraine, July 17).

Earlier this year, Tymoshenko had unsuccessfully tried to banish
RosUkrEnergo - the monopoly supplier of Gazprom's gas to Ukraine since
2006 - from the Ukrainian market. Her government also withdrew from the
contract to develop oil and gas resources in the Black Sea with a
subsidiary of the US company Vanco. Tymoshenko insisted that the corrupt
interests of previous Ukrainian governments were behind the two projects
(see EDM, June 4, July 2).

Tymoshenko apparently believes that the contracts with Pryvat were
intended to give that company full control over the Odessa-Brody
pipeline for many years to come. According to parliamentary deputy Serhy
Pashynsky from the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, who sits on the parliament's
energy committee, Pryvat would have taken Odessa-Brody under its control
for a 14-year term, had the contracts with Milbert Ventures been signed.
The Russians are also unhappy. Sources at LUKoil and TNK said that they
had not been notified of Kyiv's immediate intention to start pumping
Caspian oil through the Odessa-Brody pipeline (Kommersant Ukraine, July
18). Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin expressed concern over
the plans, saying that the affected Russian companies would have to seek
other routes for delivering their oil to EU countries (Interfax-Ukraine,
July 21).

Pryvat was among Tymoshenko's allies in 2005-2006, when rival Ukrainian
tycoons such as Viktor Pinchuk and Konstantin Grygorishyn voiced
suspicions that Tymoshenko was backing Privat in property disputes with
them. Ihor Kolomoysky, the informal leader of Privat, admitted that his
and Tymoshenko's interests "coincided" at that time. Later on, however,
Pryvat fell out with Tymoshenko, and she accused Pryvat of foul play on
the energy market (Channel 5 TV, March 28). In one of his most recent
interviews, Kolomoysky said that he would back Yushchenko's re-election
bid against Tymoshenko's possible candidacy, and that he would consider
leaving Ukraine if she became president (Ukrainska Pravda, March 28,
April 2)

-- Pavel Korduban

 

AP

 

Ukraine Germany; Oil matters loom over Merkel's Ukraine visit 

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

21 July 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel pledged Monday to
help Ukraine implement reforms to bring the former Soviet republic into
NATO, a prospect strongly opposed by Russia.

As Merkel met with Ukrainian leaders on a one-day visit, Russia
criticized Ukraine's energy policy in what appeared to be a reminder of
the country's -- and Europe's -- dependency on Russian oil and gas.

"We are proceeding from the fact that one day Ukraine will become a
member of NATO," Merkel told reporters after meeting with President
Viktor Yushchenko.

Merkel said Germany and other NATO countries will work with Ukraine on a
"navigation plan" to guide Ukraine toward membership in the Western
alliance. In order to join, Ukraine will have to upgrade its
Soviet-style army in line with Western military standards, fight
corruption and promote civil society.

Earlier this year, a NATO summit denied Ukraine a Membership Action
Plan, seen as a roadmap toward joining. But the summit promised Ukraine
eventual membership.

That decision was seen as Russia's success in lobbying Western European
countries, mainly Germany and France, who cited hostility toward the
alliance among many Ukrainians and the country's main opposition parties
as well as the need for further reform.

The two countries were seen as reluctant to anger Russia, which supplies
Europe with some 40 percent of the European Union's natural gas imports
and which has fiercely protested Ukraine's efforts to join NATO.

Merkel, however, stressed that the issue of Ukraine's membership does
not concern anyone else.

"It cannot be that other countries that don't belong to the alliance are
discussing this issue," Merkel said. "It is a question for Ukraine and
NATO."

Merkel also said that Ukraine has made strong progress toward further
integration with the European Union.

The same day Merkel was in Kiev, officials in Moscow discussed oil and
gas relations with Ukraine, which is heavily dependent on Russia for
energy.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin criticized Ukraine's plans to
reverse the direction of the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline this year, citing
concerns over stability of Russian crude supplies to Europe.

The pipeline runs in the reverse of its intended direction, shipping
Russian crude to the Black Sea port of Odessa and on to overseas
markets. But Ukraine wants to start shipping oil in the opposite
direction to Brody, near the Polish border, which would later connect
with an extension to Poland.

"This is a concern for Russian companies supplying crude to Central
Europe. These companies will have to look for other delivery routes,"
Sechin said during a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin,
Interfax news agency reported.

Exporters are considering sending shipments via the Black Sea port of
Novorossiysk and the Baltic port of Primorsk, said Sechin, who also
chairs the board of state oil company Rosneft.

Ukraine plans to feed the pipeline at Odessa with Caspian crude, but
there are concerns over whether there would be enough oil to fill the
pipeline.

Meanwhile, President Dmitry Medvedev and Gazprom <javascript:void(0);>
CEO Alexei Miller discussed the terms of supplying natural gas to
Ukraine for 2009, Interfax reported. No details were given.

Miller had said earlier that the price for Ukraine could more than
double, prompting concerns that such a hike could cripple the Ukrainian
economy. Ukrainian leaders have asked for a phased increase.

Ukraine's natural gas dealings with Russia are being watched carefully
in Europe, since up to 80 percent of Russian gas reached European
consumers through pipelines that cross Ukraine. Yushchenko reiterated
his country's reliability as a transporter of natural gas.

"We will carefully fulfill all our obligations," Yushchenko told
reporters.

RFE/RL

July 22, 2008

EU Debates Ukraine's Credentials 

by Ahto Lobjakas 

BRUSSELS -- When is a door no longer closed, and yet not open?
 

That might be the riddle baffling officials in Kyiv as they ponder the
European Union's latest failure to determine whether or not Ukraine is
"European." The seemingly straightforward question is significant, since
only "European states" are eligible for EU membership according to the
bloc's founding treaty.

The trouble the EU is having in making up its mind was amply evident in
the summary of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on July 22.

"We have [today] spoken of the European character -- although some
contest it -- [the] European character [of Ukraine], without prejudging
the future of Ukraine with regard to the European Union," said French
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country currently holds the
EU's rotating presidency.

The majority of those attending the meeting responded in the
affirmative. As Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt put it, Ukraine is
clearly not an Asian or African country and, as such, deserves
acknowledgment that it will one day be eligible for EU membership.

At the other end of the spectrum are the Benelux countries and, on and
off, Germany. This camp argues that the European Union is not ready to
tackle what it calls the "political" issue of an increasingly impatient
Ukraine's status.

The EU foreign ministers' failure to agree on Ukraine's status as a
"European" country -- a precondition for consideration for EU membership
-- places time at a premium, with Ukraine expecting an answer by this
fall.

Geographically speaking, the issue is uncontroversial -- no one
maintains that Ukraine is situated anywhere else than Europe. But
politically, the definition would open the door for Ukraine to apply for
EU membership, which critics say would be a step too far.

This argument is also made by the European Commission, the EU's
executive arm. Diplomats in Brussels say the commission's line
throughout sometimes heated meetings this month has been to warn that
Ukraine could open a Pandora's box of further EU enlargement. The
European public, the argument goes, is not ready for this, nor is
Ukraine itself with its feuding leaders and deeply split public opinion
when it comes to relations with the West.

After the July 22 foreign ministers' meeting, EU External Relations
Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Ukraine's internal stability
remains one of the EU's leading concerns.

"We feel Ukraine has to do a lot in order to stabilize [its] interior
politics," Ferroro-Waldner said. "That there are great frictions between
the president and the prime minister -- these things, we would like to
see them in a different way and I think this is also something that we
will certainly discuss at the EU-Ukraine summit."

As a result of the July 22 meeting, it appears Ukraine will get its wish
and conclude a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU
sometime in 2009. However, the evocative title of the new cooperation
accord is unlikely to be the symbolic breakthrough Kyiv is hoping for.
The EU will try to nip in the bud any suggestions that, by getting an
SAA, Ukraine would be following in the footsteps of the bloc's newest
postcommunist members, all of which signed such an agreement before
joining.

While the preambles of those states' SAAs all mentioned the EU's
intention of helping them meet their objectives of gaining membership,
Ukraine's agreement is unlikely to say anything of the kind. Instead,
what the EU is seeking is a formulation that, in the words of diplomats
in Brussels, "would not close the door."

The European Neighborhood Policy, with its studiedly noncommittal stance
on the membership question, will in future still define the major
parameters of Ukraine's relationship with the EU.

The closest the European Union will come to acknowledging Ukraine's
ambitions will be in a joint declaration at the EU-Ukraine summit on
September 9. The wording of the declaration is still open.

Officials in Brussels say a Ukrainian delegation walked out of a meeting
in Brussels earlier this month when it became clear their country was
going to be denied an explicit membership prospect.

But Brussels appears confident that it can secure Kyiv's acquiescence,
however grudging, in return for an offer of talks on visa-free travel --
to be formally made at the upcoming summit at the French resort of
Evian.

OSCE Project Coordinator's Office

Kyiv, Ukraine

http://www.osce.org/ukraine/


Press Releases:


OSCE Project Co-ordinator trains Ukrainian regional authorities to
address trafficking in human beings 


 

LUHANSK, Ukraine, 22 July 2008 - The OSCE Project Co-ordinator launched
today a series of ten regional training sessions, to take place across
Ukraine, on how to address the problem of trafficking in human beings...


OSCE Project Co-ordinator helps discharged Ukrainian military pilots and
staff find new opportunities 


 

NIZHYN, Ukraine, 22 July 2008 - A joint project by the OSCE Project
Co-ordinator and the Ukrainian Defence Ministry for former military
pilots and technical staff has helped the latest participants, who
graduated today, to get jobs...

 

 

 

 

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