Swedish EU Presidency - EU-Ukraine Summit in Kiev

On Friday, 4 December Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt will travel to Kiev to chair the EU-Ukraine summit.

The EU will also be represented by Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt and President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. The Ukrainian delegation will be led by President Viktor Jusjtjenko.

The summit will address broad relations and cooperation between the EU and Ukraine. Particular importance will be given to the issues of climate change, energy and the management of the economic and financial crisis. In addition, the EU’s Eastern Partnership and current international issues will be discussed.

Meetings are also planned with Prime Minister Julia Tymosjenko and leader of the opposition Viktor Janukovytj.

Source:isria.com

Ukrainian genocide will be commemorated in Quebec

QUEBEC - Members of the Quebec provincial legislature voted unanimously to approve on first reading a bill to commemorate the Ukrainian genocide in the 1930s, when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin withheld food from Ukraine, leading to millions of deaths.

The bill was presented by Parti Quebecois member Louise Beaudoin.

Once the bill receives final approval, the fourth Saturday in November will be designated to commemorate the Ukrainian genocide, known as the Holodomor.

If passed, Quebec will be the fourth province to mark the genocide. Alberta passed similar legislation in October 2008.

Also, in May 2008, the Harper government said it would recognize the Holodomor as genocide.

The genocide, in 1932 and 1933, was Stalin's attempt to subdue the Ukrainian people by systematically starving them and restricting travel beyond their villages. The exact number of victims remains unclear.

Montreal Gazette with files from Canwest News Service

Source:canada.com

EU turns away from Ukraine

EU officials are casting a wary eye at Ukraine as it prepares for watershed presidential elections in January that look likely to spark a lurch back towards the Russian sphere five years after the former Soviet republic was supposedly set free by the "Orange Revolution". The cautious approach in Brussels is again raising questions about the EU's apparent lack of a strategic vision – and political courage – in its dealing with its eastern neighbours.

Fierce rivalry between President Viktor Yushchenko, who is standing for re-election, and his prime minister and principal opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, is feeding worries about the recession-ravaged country's political and economic stability. Yushchenko's decision this month to approve a 20% increase in wages and pensions, characterised by critics as a crude pre-election bribe, led the IMF to freeze the fourth instalment of a $16.4bn bailout package. That in turn increased credit market fears of a sovereign default.

Tymoshenko, a famously combative millionaire currently leading in the polls, accused the president of deliberately sabotaging the IMF agreement to starve her government of cash and undermine her presidential bid. But she in turn has been accused of sucking up to the Russians, in the shape of the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who as Russia's then president opposed the Orange Revolution and is an inveterate Yushchenko foe.

After late-night talks with Tymoshenko in the Crimean resort of Yalta last week, Putin said he had agreed to waive various penalties and amend Russia's natural gas supply contract with Ukraine to avoid a repeat of last January's dispute, which led to serious gas shortages in eastern and central Europe.

"It would be very good to meet the new year without any shocks," Putin said, adding that transit fees next year would rise by 60% – a change potentially worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. Tymoshenko's response was unctuous. "You, as a strong country, are meeting us halfway," she said. The deal was seen as both a none-too-subtle attempt to show that she, unlike Yushchenko, could do business with Moscow, and as blatant electoral interference by Putin.

Ukraine's shenanigans have even led football's ruling body, Uefa, to seek assurances that preparations and financing for the Euro 2012 championship, to be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, will not be affected by the elections. Uefa is also worried that visa-free travel arrangements with the EU have yet to be agreed.

All this is watched with trepidation in Brussels, where José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, recently telephoned Yushchenko to reportedly express concern over the way the IMF bailout and Europe's gas supplies have become political footballs. According to euobserver.com, commission plans to offer €500m in economic aid are under review "because of Kiev's unwillingness to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz". About 80% of EU natural gas supplies from Russia transit Ukraine.

Such is the animosity between the rival camps that EU officials fret that the election, which is also contested by the pro-Russian former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, could end in stalemate and possibly violent recriminations, as happened in 2004 when Yanukovich was initially declared the winner and then unseated.

These strains and stresses lend an air of crisis to the EU-Ukraine summit on 4 December, which is shaping up as the first big test for the untried diplomatic skills of the EU's new foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton. Officials say the EU aims to give Ukraine a "stern warning" that substantive political and financial reform is a prerequisite for progress on issues such as visas and future association and trade agreements.

But full EU membership, on which Yushchenko set his heart, is now a receding prospect. Impatience with Ukraine across the EU is growing, with France and Germany, for example, delaying its accession to the EU's energy community treaty. More significantly, last year's Russian invasion of Georgia, and Moscow's accompanying claims of Ukrainian support for Tbilisi, have driven home the message in Brussels that forging closer, structural ties with Ukraine could have severe, negative consequences for EU-Russian relations.

Given the much reduced appetite for further EU enlargement, it seems certain that the high watermark of EU-Ukraine ties has already passed. It's no consolation for Yushchenko that much the same applies to Georgia, Belarus and Turkey. And for many in Europe who hoped for better, braver things along the EU's post-Soviet eastern frontier, it's galling to conclude that, in a sense, Putin has won.


Source:guardian.co.uk

Ukraine demands progress on visa issue at summit

Ukraine says it will seek to "speed up" dialogue with the EU on various issues at a summit between the two sides next month.

Spefically, Kiev says it will demand progress on the issue of visa liberalisation at the meeting on 4 December.

Despite problems on this, a spokesman for the country's EU mission said, "The summit will nevertheless prove Ukraine and the EU are steadily moving forward towards each other."

"At the same time, we expect to speed up Ukraine-EU dialogue in spring next year, after both Ukraine and the EU have completed their institutional changes.

With the threat of disrution of gas supplies to European countries once again a possibility, energy security will be another item for discussion at the summit in Kiev.

During last year the negotiations between Ukraine and the EU on the association agreement have "considerably advanced."

The source said, "Sectoral cooperation chapter is almost finished. The sides are now focused on negotiating the free trade area which is to become a unique and ambitious FTA in terms of scope and depth of the liberalization of trade in goods and services, as well as adaptation of the EU acquis.

"The top priority for Ukraine remains further visa liberalisation for Ukrainian citizens to travel to the EU.

"We hope the summit will make its contribution to further extension of the categories of Ukrainian citizens eligible to get facilitated visas.

"We also hope the leaders will give an impetus to elaborate methodology and set up clear-cut criteria needed to be achieved by Ukraine in order to get a visa free regime in the future."

He added, "Global challenges like climate change, energy security, prevention and repression of acts of piracy will also be discussed at the summit.

"Ukraine is getting ready to commit itself to further reduction of carbon emission and to cooperate with the EU on the environmental issues by establishing in the future the regional environmental centre in Ukraine."

When it comes to energy security, he said Ukraine aspires to join the energy community treaty this year and "counts on the EU support in this regard."

He went on, "Being one of the countries whose nationals continue to be often victims of pirate hijack attacks off the Somali coast, Ukraine has voiced its readiness to make a contribution to EU NAFVOR Somalia.

He said Ukraine planned to send 30 special mission unit agents to participate in the EU-led operation.


Source:theparliament.com

Swine flu pandemic peaks in Ukraine

After three weeks of panic, pandemonium and politics, the initial swine flu pandemic in Ukraine has peaked.

Today the government is expected to end a nationwide ban on public gatherings, lift travel restrictions and order the reopening of parliament, schools and universities in all but 11 regions.

But the country, with its anemic health-care system, is still reeling from having 1.6 million people fall sick with the flu, resulting in the hospitalization of 97,000 people and the deaths of 388 in three weeks.

At the height of the frenzy, tens of thousands were becoming ill each day, dozens were dying and the Ukraine navy said it could not carry out combat duty because of a lack of manpower.

The National Security & Defence Council said there were constitutional prerequisites to declare a state of emergency and politicians briefly talked of postponing presidential elections, scheduled for Jan. 17.

A rising death toll added fear to the emotions rattling Ukraine as it ran out of essential medicines and supplies.

Pharmacies looked like Soviet-era shops with long lines of customers queuing for nonexistent surgical masks and cold medicines. The Health Ministry's stock of Tamiflu, an anti-viral designed to slow the spread of influenza, was used up in days and people began to hoard lemons and garlic for homemade cures.

Ukraine's fragile health system was soon paralyzed and rumours proliferated that people were dying of a new, more lethal strain of influenza virus.

As the World Health Organization rushed a nine-member outbreak assessment team to Ukraine in early November, politicians rounded on each other, predicting mass illness and death.

President Viktor Yushchenko declared his country had been hit simultaneously by two seasonal flus and the "California" (swine) flu, and blamed his political arch-rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko for failing to prepare for the outbreak.

Ms. Tymoshenko, who is running for president, provided daily television updates on the pandemic and appeared in public swathed in hospital gowns and wearing a surgical mask. She criticized her rivals for hindering her efforts to end the pandemic.

When parliament voted to spend US$125-million to fight the flu, Mr. Yushchenko refused to authorize it, saying it would fuel inflation. Instead, he launched his own appeal for foreign aid.

Not to be outdone, presidential frontrunner Viktor Yanukovich, a former prime minister and leader of the Regions' Party, pledged to use election campaign donations to buy flu medicine and 20 million surgical masks.

"Ukrainian politicians, including the two main presidential candidates, do not really care about the fate of their people," columnist Kateryna Grushenko wrote in the Kyiv Post. "They allowed themselves to turn the H1N1 epidemic into a PR show during days when educational, medical, and society-oriented coverage should have been provided to the population."

As the pandemic entrenched itself, straining hospitals and emergency rooms to the breaking point, Ukraine's panic grew. With no authoritative explanation for what was happening, bloggers and conspiracy theorists suggested the country was in the grip of a mysterious, more lethal virus.

The government and WHO were deliberately playing down the pandemic's death toll, some suggested.

When Norwegian scientists announced they had found a mutated form of the swine flu virus that could infect deeper into the airways and cause more severe disease, Ukraine's news media began reporting that doctors conducting postmortems on some patients had found their lungs had virtually disintegrated.

The WHO tried to temper the sensational reports saying "viruses with similar mutations had been detected in several other countries, including Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine and the United States."

"No links between the small numbers of patients infected with the mutated virus have been found and the mutation does not appear to spread," it added.

By last week, the WHO said its preliminary analysis of Ukraine's pandemic showed "the virus is very similar to other strains causing the current influenza A(H1N1) pandemic elsewhere in Europe."

This virus is the main cause of Ukraine's problems and current pandemic vaccines will provide protection, it added.

Only Ukraine doesn't have any vaccine. Short of cash and hoping to combat any pandemic with Tamiflu, it did not order vaccine.

Now, it is appealing to foreign countries, including Canada, for vaccine donationsy.

The United States has already volunteered to deliver one million vaccine doses in December.

But the WHO is recommending 10% of Ukraine's 46 million people be inoculated by January.




Source:nationalpost.com

Russia’s Central MSD Working to Recover Influence over Muslims in Ukraine

In much the same way that the Moscow Patriarchate is working to maintain its control of more than 12,000 Orthodox parishes in Ukraine, the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) in Ufa is seeking “the restoration of a common spiritual space” with the Muslim communities in Ukraine.

Rinat Aysin, recently appointed as the representative of the Central MSD in Ukraine, told Bashinform.ru this week that UFA continues to play a major role in Ukraine because “a large proportion of the Muslims” in that country remain to this day “supporters of the Central MSD of Russia” (bashinform.ru/news/228315/).

He said that the Central MSD has already developed “a number of educational programs” for Ukraine’s Muslims and that representatives of the Ufa organization “will travel to Ukraine for the preparation” of Muslim leader there and “in parallel with this will organize courses for spiritual pastors from Ukraine in Ufa and in Moscow.”

Doing this, Aysin said, is part of his “civic and religious responsibility” because “after the disintegration of the Soviet Union was lost a large part of the cultural ties which united the residents of our countries. And these connections today must be re-established throughout the entire post-Soviet space.”

While Aysin did not say more, there are at least three reasons for the announcement of this program now. First, Moscow has been playing up concerns about Islamic radicalism in Crimea in order to set the stage for a possible Russian intervention there, and Ufa clearly wants to be ready for that (risu.org.ua/eng/news/article;32568/).

Indeed, in an interview Aysin’s boss, longtime Central MSD head Talgat Tajuddin gave to the Bashkortostan edition of “Argumenty i fakty” this week, the mufti, who is one of the last Muslim leaders in Russia appointed in Soviet times, said there would be no extremism in Islam if there were the Muslim equivalent of pope or patriarch (ufa.aif.ru/issues/779/3_1).

“If there were four spiritual directorates in the Soviet Union,” Tajuddin said, “there are now more than 60 [in Russia alone]. Let there be even 600, but one must be the main one. Only one. And then the problems of extremism, terrorism and all other filth will be resolved within the Muslim umma.”

Second, Tajuddin, who has styled himself as the Supreme Mufti of Holy Rus, very much wants to be at least primus inter pares among the Muslim leaders of Russia and of the post-Soviet space, a position that his own sometimes extravagant comments and actions would appear to have put beyond is reach.

Now, at meetings timed to correspond with the 220th anniversary of the formation of the Orenburg Spiritual Assembly, the predecessor of the Central MSD, Tajuddin has been stressing the notion that Ufa is “the Mecca” for Muslims in the former Soviet republics and that its leader should be deferred to as the most senior (bashinform.ru/news/227940/).

And third, Tajuddin, more than any other Muslim leader in the Russian Federation, has routinely followed the course set out by the Moscow Patriarchate. In fact, some of his opponents have called him “the Muslim Patriarch” because he wants to establish such tight control. Now that Kirill is pursuing an active policy in Ukraine, Tajuddin is not surprisingly following suit.

Ukraine’s Muslim community is much smaller than the Orthodox one. It includes nearly 400 parishes, nearly that many mullahs and imams, and five MSDs, all set up after 1991. The most important of these is the MSD of Crimea, which supervises almost three-quarters of all registered Muslim communities in Ukraine (risu.org.ua/eng/major.religions/muslims/).

Among the other MSDs in that country are the Spiritual Direction of Muslims of Ukraine, which is explicitly multi-ethnic and consists primarily of migrant labor communities from Central Asia and the Caucasus, and the Spiritual Center of the Muslim Communities of Ukraine, which is made up of Tatars living outside of Crimea.

Because these groups are small and seldom get much attention from Kyiv, it is quite possible that the Russian MSD leaders in Ufa will have more success in spreading their influence among the faithful in Ukraine than even Kirill has had in holding the Orthodox of Ukraine within the orbit of the Moscow Patriarchate.

If that proves to be the case, Tajuddin and the Central MSD may be the big winners not only in their campaign for state-backed primacy within the very much divided Muslim community of the Russian Federation but also in their efforts to recover their influence not only in Ukraine but elsewhere in the post-Soviet states as well.


Source:georgiandaily.com

EU-Ukraine summit to mark new chapter in relations

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The EU aims to give Ukraine a stern warning about financial and political reform at an upcoming summit, as the two sides head into a new, more pragmatic chapter in bilateral relations.

In an anecdote told by one EU official, a close ally of Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko, Oleh Rybachuk, visited Brussels shortly after the Orange Revolution in November 2004. Following a marathon of meetings in various formats in the EU institutions, Mr Rybachuk's frustration came to a head. "He just said 'Look, who do I have to talk to round here to get Ukraine into the European Union?'" the EU official recalled.

Five years down the line, the EU has a new "foreign minister" who is preparing to attend the summit in Kiev on 4 December.

But the event is likely to be the last of its kind for the Orange Revolution hero, Mr Yushchenko, who trails badly in polls ahead of presidential elections in January.

The question of EU accession remains firmly off the agenda despite romantic ideas among some Ukrainian diplomats that the country should submit a formal application for membership next year.

The EU is equally unwilling to open up borders with its eastern neighbour: At a meeting of foreign ministers last week, only Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia backed a plan to offer Ukraine a "roadmap" for visa-free travel in the next few years.

Even Poland, traditionally Ukraine's biggest friend in Brussels, has become fed up with its internal instability and confrontational negotiating tactics.

If Ukraine embroils the EU in a fresh gas crisis with Russia in January, as feared, or fails to hold normal presidential elections, relations will deteriorate further.

The EU is keen to keep making progress on a technical Association Agreement and to help Ukraine cope with its recession.

But European Commission plans to offer €500 million in economic aid are under review because of Kiev's unwillingness to curb public spending or to clean up waste and corruption at its national gas company, Naftogaz.

Limited objectives

In this context, the union's main objective at the summit will be to "send clear messages on the need for determined and decisive action on reform," according to an internal EU paper. The union does not expect a quick reaction. "What kind of commitment can we ask from the Ukrainians in this regard even before the elections?" the internal paper said.

Ukraine's likely next president and current prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, stands accused of cultivating an authoritarian style reminiscent of the country's pre-Orange Revolution leader, Leonid Kuchma.

She is also building closer relations with Moscow: Her recent gas deals with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin could help Russia to gain control of Naftogaz' pipeline network. Nobody expects her to follow Mr Yushchenko's plan to evict the Russian navy from Crimea in 2017 or to steer Ukraine toward Nato.

The EU's lack of ambition to anchor Ukraine to the West is criticised by some.

"There is a lack of strategic political thinking in the EU as far as Ukraine is concerned," Ukraine's deputy foreign minister, Konstantin Yeliseyev, said on a visit to Brussels last week. "I hope the current bad weather with regard to our European aspirations does not lead to a permanent ice age."

Pragmatism sets in

But the passing of the heady days of colour revolutions is being increasingly welcomed inside the EU.

A senior diplomat from one former Communist EU country told EUobserver that Ukraine is likely to act as a model for EU relations with other post-Soviet states. The contact envisaged that in the coming years the union will roll out trade and visa deals with Belarus, Moldova and Georgia. But it will not push for a democratic government in Minsk or for Chisinau and Tbilisi to regain control of Russian-held regions.

"Under Tymoshenko Ukraine will be more Kuchma-like. But she is a rational person. Ukraine will be more stable and more predictable if she is in charge," the EU diplomat said.

Source:euobserver.com