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Verbatim report of proceedings
Thursday, 11 March 2004 - Strasbourg OJ edition

10. Ukraine
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  President. – The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution tabled by the following Members:

– Mrs Isler Béguin and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on Ukraine (B5-0129/2004);

– Mr Belder, on behalf of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, on Ukraine (B5-0132/2004);

–Mr van den Bos, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on Ukraine (B5-0135/2004);

– Mrs Caullery, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, on Ukraine (B5-0137/2004);

– Mr Wiersma and Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Ukraine (B5-0139/2004);

– Mr Posselt, Mrs Stauner and Mr Tannock, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on Ukraine (B5-0141/2004);

– Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on Ukraine (B5-0143/2004).

 
  
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  Tannock (PPE-DE). Mr President, in a true democracy a struggle for political power and ideas is healthy and gives people their own choice of government and political leaders. However, the results of an election can never be made certain before polling, preventing people from dismissing an unpopular regime. President Kuchma's belated interest, shortly before his term of office expires, in transforming Ukraine's system from an executive presidential to a parliamentary majority one, with an appointed executive prime minister, raises suspicions that this is a political manoeuvre designed to perpetuate his hold on power when he is trailing far behind opposition leader Mr Ushanka in the polls.

The first constitutional amendment vote in this direction on 24 December was strongly criticised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe because it used a show of hands. Some deputies were even photographed with both hands in the air, which is clearly against the Ukraine parliament's own rules of procedure and a violation of Article 3 of the Council of Europe's Statute, to which Ukraine has made a binding commitment and whose violation could jeopardise Ukraine's membership.

The PACE also criticised the behaviour of the opposition, which protested by blocking all the parliament's work. On 3 February, and under international pressure, the constitutional bill was amended, which we must welcome as an improvement, to maintain a directly elected president – albeit a weakened presidency – and introduce lifetime security of tenure for judges in order to carry support from the socialist block of Mr Maroz, which has also declared that it will only support the final reading of the bill if substantial reforms are made to democratise the parliament via a proportional representation system. Once again, the government invoked questionable emergency parliamentary procedures to accelerate the voting and bypass national or parliamentary debate.

I would also like to remind the Ukraine Government that under their constitution, normally a constitutional change requires a confirmatory referendum by the people.

Like the rest of this House, I am also concerned about measures which might stifle open and free debate in Ukraine. Certainly pressure on the opposition media is commonplace. The case cited in the resolution of the paper Silski Visti is a bad one, in my view, as it was understandably and rightly prosecuted for publishing three extremely anti-Semitic articles. The government also claims that the end of Radio Liberty broadcasts was entirely due to commercial considerations rather than political reasons of pressure on the opposition.

In defence of Mr Kuchma, the United States allegations of breaking United Nations sanctions last year by exporting the Kolchuha radar system to Iraq have not been proven, as no such radar system has ever been found during the weapons of mass destruction search in Iraq.

Ukraine is now at a crossroads between a western-style democratic future with EU aspirations, which we in the European Parliament support in principle, and reverting to a semi-democratic authoritarian type of system. The choice is Ukraine's to make. We strongly believe the former is preferable for the future prosperity and freedom of its people and that wonderful country.

 
  
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  Isler Béguin (Verts/ALE). (FR) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our European Union is enlarging by bringing together, on the basis of its values and standards, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe liberated from decades of communist oppression. This harmonisation from the top down of the political and economic spheres, which is what the accession countries have called for and sought, maintains the stability and prosperity of this European area.

Enlargement has, however, brought to light and made us see a new neighbourhood on the edge of Europe. Ukraine is one of the European countries that are working hard to extricate themselves from the negative effects of and practices carried out by last century’s Sovietism. The contrast with a Central and Baltic Europe, that is standardising and restoring rights, highlights the democratic deficits, the multiple restrictions and economic insecurities that remain throughout this new neighbourhood.

Of course, this social, political and economic divide between the two poles of the same Europe means that the European Union must, within the context of its enlargement, activate its measures, means and initiatives, and its mutual assistance based on solidarity. This decoupling of the enlarged Union and its Eastern neighbours also, and above all, raises the issue of the European Union’s historic links with its Eastern cousins where Community interest is too restricted to making its border more secure and to its nuclear facilities. Instead of today calling for the Tacis programmes in Ukraine to be stepped up, in order to economically restore some sort of stability with this neighbour, why did we not make our solidarity, our programmes and our budgets more open to them after 1991? Nevertheless, Ukraine fully contributes to the European identity and its government stands by its claim, despite the reluctance of the European Union, to take its legitimate place there.

The European Union has a political and moral obligation to the Ukrainian people to set to work to effectively restore the fundamental freedoms to their country: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of political and union association. It is imperative that the European Union remains vigilant, as regards the places of detention, and that it should also be present at the next elections. However, as the current enlargement shows, there are no better foundations for the rule of law, democracy, human and environmental rights than those in the European Union, and not those on its doorstep. It will be at the cost of a new enlargement: this will be the price we will pay for the unification of Europe.

 
  
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  Belder (EDD).(NL) Mr President, the day before yesterday, an estimated 5 000 to 7 000 Ukrainian citizens demonstrated in Kiev, their country’s capital, calling for ‘freedom for the word’. This demonstration was in response to President Kuchma's regime’s increasingly repressive policy on the media. Last Saturday, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung had some justification for writing on its front page that opposition media in Ukraine had to fear for their continued existence. The situation reflects this. Exactly a week ago, Nikola Tomenko, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on media freedom – note its name! – delivered a devastating indictment in the parliament, the Verkhovna Rada; presidential elections are to be held this year, and President Kuchma is attempting to use all possible means to suppress dissident opinions. In this connection, there is currently a great deal of controversy surrounding the death of Yuri Chechyk, the director of the private radio station, last Wednesday. Chechyk lost his life in a traffic accident on the way from his home in Poltava to Kiev for a meeting with Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian branch of Radio Liberty. This fact alone has aroused suspicion about Chechyk’s unexpected death. Only a few hours after his death, the Ukrainian security services stormed the Kiev station Radio Continent and seized all its broadcasting equipment. This station had evidently incurred the displeasure of the Ukrainian powers-that-be by transmitting programmes from Radio Liberty. Radio Continent’s director has, in the meantime, left the country post-haste, himself stating that he has done so in fear of his life. It was Radio Continent, too, that employed the journalist Georgi Gongadze, who went missing in the year 2000 and was later found decapitated. The campaign that President Kuchma and his associates are evidently waging, at the present time, against independent media contradicts Kiev’s official claim to be promoting democracy in Ukraine and to be seeking to draw closer to Europe.

At the beginning of this week, the former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, writing in the New York Times, called for action on both sides of the Atlantic to defend political and personal freedom in Ukraine. I hope that Washington and Brussels will indeed close ranks, as Albright puts it, in order to defend freedom’s borders and set them wider.

 
  
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  Ford (PSE). Mr President, on behalf of the PSE Group, I wish to say that we recognise the importance of Ukraine as a country with historical, cultural and economic ties to the EU and with long-term aspirations of membership of the European Union. We also welcome the preparation by the Commission of the action plan – due to be ready in spring this year – that will enable Ukraine to integrate progressively into EU policies and programmes.

However, a genuine partnership can only develop on the basis of shared common values, in particular democracy, the rule of law and respect for human and civil rights. At the moment, those conditions are not being met in Ukraine and the situation is deteriorating. Prison conditions, arbitrary detention and excessively long periods of pre-trial detention in Ukraine remain serious problems. Freedom of expression – as some of my colleagues have mentioned in more detail – is coming under increasing threat and there have been a number of serious violations of the rights of the independent media and journalists.

We therefore call on the Ukrainian authorities to improve prison conditions and end arbitrary detention and excessively long periods of pre-trial detention. We call on the government of Ukraine to respect freedom of expression and to undertake sustained and effective measures to prevent and punish interventions against free and independent media. We ask the government to clarify allegations that its secret services were instructed to spy on journalists and Ukrainian and foreign politicians in their respective home countries in order to discourage them if necessary from continuing to take up human rights issues. We ask the Ukrainian authorities to make a formal commitment to hold October's forthcoming presidential elections in conditions of the greatest possible transparency, and hope that the European Commission will consider, along with Parliament and other bodies, whether we should send an election observation mission.

 
  
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  Posselt (PPE-DE).(DE) Mr President, Ukraine is without doubt a European country – one of the largest – and we must not forget how this European country was for decades oppressed and plundered as a Soviet colony. There is no room for self-righteousness in the criticisms we level at Ukraine today, for we, thank God, have been spared a fate such as theirs – or, at least, most of us have been. There is much, then, that we have to appreciate and understand.

For Ukraine to develop will take some time. We in this House have, over recent years, done a great deal to support Ukraine, and even before the great changes between 1989 and 1991 there were elements in Western Europe who cooperated with it. I am thinking here of the Ukrainian university in exile in my electoral district in Munich, or of Radio Liberty, which used to broadcast from Munich, which was perhaps something of a free Ukrainian metropolis. That has always given us a great deal of sympathy and understanding for the Ukrainian people in their aspiration towards a life of their own.

We cannot, however, show any consideration towards politicians who are not merely corrupt, who are not merely dragging their heels when it comes to getting their country to make progress, but are even doing the very opposite by trying to freeze to death the tender shoots of democracy and the rule of law, who are actively using criminal methods to counter their opposition, and attempting to silence their critics in the media. To take one example, it is an appalling scandal when a Member of this European Parliament – Mrs Stauner, and she is surely not the only one – is shadowed by an officer of the Ukrainian secret police, because she brought members of the Ukrainian opposition into this House or raised critical issues, such as the trade in organs, the trafficking in children and many other problems that there are, unfortunately, not only in Ukraine but also with Ukraine.

Our policy, then, must be an utterly unambiguous one. While we must, in principle, be sympathetic towards the Ukrainian people as an important European partner, we must speak out strongly against, and take firm action against, all those who, in whatever way, seek to whittle away and destroy the democracy that is coming into being in their country.

 
  
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  Sacrédeus (PPE-DE). (SV) Mr President, Commissioner Solbes Mira, ladies and gentlemen, in 2002, I travelled at Easter to Ukraine as one of the European Parliament’s election observers. I noticed with concern how remarkably fearful and uneasy people were, and particularly young candidates, about freely expressing their political opinions. Within the framework of the Commission’s programme for a wider Europe, I have worked to bring about a situation in which, as in fact has happened, the European Parliament might come down in favour of Ukraine’s adopting a European perspective and, having at one time been a European nation, becoming a member of the EU.

At the same time, I wish to call attention to the fact that Ukraine is a very old nation. In terms of statehood, it is, however, young, having been subject to Russian and Soviet control. Against this background, it is all the more unfortunate that so many in the media and journalism are getting into trouble, that Radio Liberty is being closed down, that the biggest opposition newspaper, Silsky Visty has been brought before the courts, that the privately owned radio station, Radio Dovira, has been silenced and that journalists are not only being exposed to threats but have, in some cases, in fact been murdered. The deaths of the journalists Georgi Gongadze and Jurij Tjetjiks have in actual fact still not been explained.

Many here in the European Parliament have warm feelings towards Ukraine. We are therefore all the more distressed about the developments, especially in the media, in a country that is one of the most dangerous countries of all in which to work as a journalist.

In June 2003, the Canadian Senate adopted a resolution addressing the genocide and mass starvation under Stalin in which seven million Ukrainians died. Let us remember these events. Every year, the fourth Sunday in November is a day for commemorating this genocide and this mass starvation.

 
  
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  Pohjamo (ELDR).(FI) Mr President, I think it is important that in any policy relating to a larger Europe and partnership that we remember the importance of Ukraine as a country that certainly has historical, cultural and also economic ties to Europe. At the same time we have to remember, and remind the Ukrainian administration, that real partnership can only be developed through democracy, the rule of law and a respect for civil and human rights. Ukraine really still has much to do in these areas. For example, freedom of speech and the independent media are continually under threat in Ukraine and the rule of law does not function in any satisfactory way. Poor prison conditions, random arrests, and excessively long pre-trial detentions are still serious problems. The resolution lists many concrete defects and violations of human and civil rights, which have to be put right for partnership to really develop.

The EU must encourage Ukraine to strive for better government and democracy. One instrument for this is the TACIS Democracy Programme, which should be used to strengthen the independent media, so vital for the creation of civil society, and democratic institutions. The Council and the Commission should monitor developments in Ukraine carefully and play an active and transparent role in organising the presidential elections in October, as well as other matters.

 
  
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  Solbes Mira, Commission. (ES) Mr President, I would like to begin by emphasising the importance the European Union attaches to Ukraine as a strategic partner. This is reflected in our common strategy agreed in 1999 and our cooperation within the framework of the Association and Cooperation Agreement.

With the enlargement of the Union on 1 May, the Union and Ukraine will become neighbouring areas and therefore over the coming years we will have an even greater opportunity to enhance our relations.

Within this context, as you know, we have implemented our neighbourliness initiative which sets ambitious objectives for intensifying cooperation in many areas, basing that cooperation on an unequivocal commitment to shared values and the effective application of political, economic and institutional reforms.

The European Commission therefore appreciates the attention being paid today to the debate on the process of political and constitutional reform under way in Ukraine and particularly the freedom of the press.

These are the issues we must continue to deal with within our current debates. I would also like to make a few comments and point out the importance of the issues within the context of the coming elections in October.

With regard to the substance of the constitutional reforms, I would like to reiterate the statement of 29 January. Naturally, it is Ukraine which must choose its own form of government and its Constitution, in accordance with European democratic standards, but the circumstances and the way in which the debate on this reform is being carried out continue to cause concern.

At the same time, we were pleased to see that the Ukraine parliament, at the beginning of February, adopted proposals for constitutional reform initially intended to take account of the criticisms made by the national opposition and the critical comments of the Council of Europe and the Union. This represents a step forward.

Within the context of the coming elections, the problem of freedom of the press is going to require special attention. On several occasions the Union has insisted on the need for a more transparent relationship between the press and the public powers based on the unequivocal rule of law and the effective protection of the rights of journalists.

The recent judicial decision to close an opposition newspaper and a radio station have raised new serious questions. The Union will therefore continue to clearly express its concerns with regard to the freedom of the press and will continue to insist that the role of the press be adequately respected, as should be the case within the context of freedom, within a democratic system.

I will make a comment on your request for information on the sending of observers to the elections. The priorities for formal missions of electoral observers within the Union have been defined by the Commission and Parliament in close cooperation. Generally speaking, missions as such are not sent to countries which are Member States of the OSCE – as in the case of Ukraine. However, as is customary, we intend to carry out coordination and cooperation work with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE, which is preparing a long-term observation mission. Furthermore, the Commission hopes that the European Parliament will once again send its own team to join with this OSCE mission, as it did for the last parliamentary elections in Ukraine.

I would like to end by assuring you that the Commission is closely following all the issues raised by the honourable Members in this debate within a constructive atmosphere with our Ukrainian partners. Within this context, we are right now producing and applying several specific projects to assist and cooperate with Ukraine in order to make progress on institutional aspects.

 
  
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  President. – Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.

The joint debate is closed.

The vote will take place at the end of the debates.

 
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