Ukraine: Europe's Battleground

Events have recently come to a head in Ukraine with the forced police dispersion of protesters early on Saturday morning, and calls for more protests and a nationwide strike from the opposition. All this because the Ukrainian president decided not to sign an association agreement with the EU. This agreement is not even that major an event, it is the first in a very long and slow process of EU membership, and by no means guarantees entry into the EU club. It does little but offer Free Trade and the prospect of potential future integration.  

Before really examining this issue however, you would be forgiven for not having played especially close attention to Ukraine, so some backstory to this would be prudent. Russia has created a self-styled "Eurasian Union" meant to compete with the EU and preserve Russian influence, primarily in ex-Soviet countries. At the moment the only two members (aside from Russia) are Belarus and Kazakhstan. The former has the dubious distinction of being Europe's last dictatorship and the latter has an unfortunate tendency of torturing those that oppose its autocratic leader. Unsurprisingly, Ukrainians are not interested in joining this group, though Russia desperately wants them to. Ukraine's not so distant past under the auspices of the Soviet Union as one of the poorest and most abused (as well as arguably being the target of genocide under Stalin) ex-Soviet Republics is not easily forgotten. Russian action to date has not helped ameliorate the perception Ukrainians have towards Russia. Turning off the gas in the middle of winter in 2009, when Ukrainians desperately needed to heat their homes and generally using natural gas as a lever to control Ukraine has not enamored the Ukrainian public to Russia. I saw this first hand on a recent visit to Kyiv in which national magazine covers had a depiction of Russian President Putin with a knife to the throat of Ukrainian President Yanukovych.  

So basically, Russia has a lot of power over Ukraine and Ukrainians (as with most former USSR republics) want closer ties to the West and the EU. Amid threats of trade sanctions and the usual gas politics, President Yanukovych stated he could not sign the EU association agreement and gave in to Russia. What is especially interesting here however is not the Russian pressure exerted on Ukraine, which is the usual in this era of increased efforts to exert international influence by Russia, or Ukraine's response of acquiescing to Russian demands, but in fact the EU reaction.

The EU has successfully integrated and created common policies in many areas, but foreign affairs has not been one of them. Each individual country in the EU still has what is in effect full control over their foreign policy. Some moves were made to create a common EU foreign policy. Chief among them was the creation of the External Action Service. This is meant to be the EU department of foreign affairs and has “embassies” around the world. They do very little though (with the notable exception that the EU EAS plays an important role in trade deals, which are an exclusive competency of the EU), and Catherine Ashton the head of this department, is also mostly useless. She states common EU positions, which are usually self-evident things such as saying maybe it would be nice if North Korea stopped threatening everyone with Nuclear Weapons, but never anything of substance. The only significant political achievements she has had in this role were brokering an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, and assisting in the nuclear discussion between Iran and the P5+1. Both of these roles were essentially as a mediator and are a far cry from exhibiting strong EU foreign policy.

But things might be changing with Ukraine. In response to Yanukovych's announcement that he would not be seeking the association agreement in Ukraine, the EU immediately dispatched the Commissioner for Enlargement to apply pressure on Yanukovych to change his mind. Even more starkly at the summit in Vilnius Lithuania, where the deal was supposed to have been signed, EU Commission President Barroso has some very strong words for Russia. He said Russia should not be handed a veto over sovereign Ukraine's relations with the rest of Europe. He also stated that this decision was a "road to nowhere" and that "the Ukrainian people should be disappointed". Enlargement Commissioner Füle said that "if you blink in front of Russia, you always end up in trouble, Yanukovych blinked too soon." It is worth noting that all EU countries support Ukraine adopting the Association agreement. Still, in my view this is an EU initiative, with the EU taking the lead and directing, not following member-states as usual. And while some countries eagerly want to encourage more countries to move towards EU membership, many others look with trepidation towards adding more countries to crisis prone Europe.

Ukraine is hugely important, it is the largest and most strategically important of the ex-Soviet Republics not clearly aligned with Russia or the EU. The EU has begun to show that it can pursue an aggressive and independent foreign policy, at least in this area. For all those in Ukraine, and across the Eastern Europe block who so clearly yearn for a future in Europe, hopefully EU leaders will continue to demonstrate strength in the face of Russia's bullying.