[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: WSJ; FT; WP; EDM

[Deychak, Orest]

The Wall Street Journal 

http://online.wsj.com/home-page

World News: Ex-Ukraine Leader Angles for a Return 

By James Marson 

17 November 2009

J

A14

KIEV -- Ukrainian presidential front-runner Viktor Yanukovych says that after five years under a pro-Western leader, his country needs to rebuild strong ties with Russia and ease up on pursuit of membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

"I have never denied the influence of the Russian factor in Ukrainian politics. We should always have taken it into account," said Mr. Yanukovych in his first interview with Western media since he kicked off his campaign a month ago.

In an October survey by the Razumkov Center in Kiev, Mr. Yanukovych lead with 29% support for the Jan. 17 vote. President Viktor Yushchenko trails in low single digits, while his rival and former Orange Revolution ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, is polling in second place at 20%. No candidate is expected to gain the 50% needed to triumph in the first round, and Ms. Tymoshenko and Mr. Yanukovych are expected to proceed to a February runoff.

In the 2004 election, Mr. Yanukovych, backed by Moscow, was initially declared the winner, until the so-called Orange Revolution, which brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets in Kiev to protest alleged vote-rigging. Mr. Yushchenko, who won the revote ordered by the Supreme Court, has had a strained relationship with Ukraine's eastern neighbor.

Mr. Yanukovych's resurgence comes on the back of the government's failure to push through promised overhauls, in part a consequence of infighting between the president and prime minister, who have failed to agree on an anticrisis program.

Ukraine's gross domestic product contracted 18% in the first half of the year, damaging the rating of Ms. Tymoshenko, who as prime minister is responsible for the economy. Ms. Tymoshenko's campaign emphasizes her industriousness in fighting the crisis, in spite of what she claims are blocking tactics by Mr. Yanukovych and Mr. Yushchenko. Her main campaign message reads, "She is working."

Mr. Yanukovych's Party of Regions was the driving force behind legislation recently signed into law by Mr. Yushchenko which provides for large increases in wages and pensions.

Ms. Tymoshenko's government says it can't afford the increases, and she has vociferously opposed them. The International Monetary Fund, which has helped to shore up the Ukrainian economy with almost $11 billion in loans since last fall, has said the law is the biggest obstacle to further lending.

Mr. Yanukovych blamed Ms. Tymoshenko's government for not implementing the economic program agreed to with the IMF, and said the law was needed to support low-income households during a biting crisis.

Mr. Yanukovych made clear that he would seek to improve ties with Russia, calling for "well-balanced" relations with the European Union and Russia, given Ukraine's strong economic ties with both neighbors.

He also said he wants to build "beneficial" relations with NATO, but not seek membership until the majority of Ukrainians are in favor. Surveys show that currently isn't the case.

Mr. Yushchenko has repeatedly clashed with Moscow over Russian natural-gas shipments that transit through Ukraine, his push for NATO membership and his support for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili during Russia's war with Georgia in 2008. In August, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent a letter to Mr. Yushchenko condemning his "anti-Russian" policies.

The European Union and Russia agreed Monday to create an early-warning system to protect European consumers in the event of a repeat of last winter's gas dispute, in which Russia's gas deliveries to Europe via Ukraine were halted for two weeks over pricing and payments.

But Russia warned last week that another stoppage in gas deliveries can't be ruled out if Ukraine fails to pay its bills, and one of Mr. Yanukovych's top advisers said Monday that the contracts signed by Ms. Tymoshenko in Moscow in January were "extremely unfavorable" for Ukraine and should be revised.

Analysts say Russia isn't putting all its eggs in one basket this time. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has also developed warmer ties with Ms. Tymoshenko. She has been quiet on NATO membership, but has argued for European integration and pragmatic relations with Russia.

 

Financial Times

www.ft.com

Election fever threatens feeble Ukraine recovery

By Roman Olearchyk in Kiev 

Published: November 17 2009 

There were tentative signs yesterday that Ukraine, one of the world's hardest-hit economies, might be crawling out of its deep recession, in spite of a steep fall in gross domestic product in the third quarter.

Industrial production was 5 per cent higher in October than September, although it is still well down on the beginning of the year.

And although the 15 per cent fall in annualised GDP reported yesterday is smaller than previous figures of 20.3 per cent and 17.8 per cent in the first and second quarters, Ukraine faces a daunting struggle.

With two months to go before presidential elections the International Monetary Fund has frozen a bailout amid stalled reform. There are fears Ukraine could sink deeper into financial trouble as politicians seek to win votes with spending promises. Economists say recent social expenditure increases could result in another year of double-digit inflation in 2010.

"The contraction of the economy overall is stabilising and there is some fragile recovery," said Peter Vanhecke, chief executive of Renaissance Capital Ukraine. "But the speed of economic recovery is hampered by pre-election fever. Without this, the IMF aid would be there and it would speed up the recovery."

The economy plunged last autumn after global demand for Ukraine's main export, steel, collapsed, hitting foreign earnings, triggering a 40 per cent devaluation in the currency and sending the banking sector - in which European banks hold a 40 per cent market share - into the deep freeze. Concerns over financial and economic stability was widespread.

"Regardless of who wins the election, Ukraine's new leader will have to deal with deep challenges if this economy is to demonstrate strong growth again," said Georges Massoud, managing partner in Ukraine for McKinsey & Company.

Companies are deep in debt and struggling to restructure. Naftogaz, the state gas company, averted default this autumn after creditors agreed to roll over $1.6bn (€1.1bn, £951m) But last week, the state railway defaulted on a $110m payment on a $550m loan issued by Barclays.

The European Union, which receives most of it Russian natural gas via Ukrainian pipelines, fears that a fresh energy spat with Moscow could erupt if cash-strapped Kiev fails to pay for its gas imports.

Ukraine has managed to stay financially afloat this year thanks to some $11bn in financial assistance from the IMF to cover a budget deficit and stabilise the currency.

But bitter political rivalries and the recent adoption of populist wage and pension increases have derailed co-operation with the IMF, which says it will not disburse a fourth tranche of $3.8bn from its $16.4bn aid package until Kiev's leaders demonstrate political "consensus" and dedication to tough reforms.

The IMF froze funding this month after Victor Yushchenko, the president, signed into law a 20 per cent increase on wages and pensions, defying opposition from the IMF and Yulia Tymoshenko, his prime minister and bitter rival.

Ms Tymoshenko, a presidential frontrunner, accused him of trying to starve her government of cash, thereby undercutting her presidential bid, by deliberately derailing IMF co-operation.

 

The Washington Post

www.washingtonpost.com

Op-ed

Playing politics with a pandemic 

Anne Applebaum 

17 November 2009

FINAL

A31

I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat, and mentioned this to a friend. "Swine flu?" he asked, oinking a few times for emphasis. No, as far as I can tell I do not have swine flu, the virus more formally known as H1N1. But even if I did, I'm not sure that anyone around me would take it very seriously.

How did we get to this point? That is, how did we get to a point where outbreaks treated with the utmost seriousness by the World Health Organization -- swine flu has been officially declared a "pandemic " -- receive vastly different levels of respect in different countries, different cities and even among different social groups within them? Some seem convinced that the current flu epidemic is a modern version of the Black Death. Others -- including a number of elected politicians and health bureaucrats -- suspect a hoax perpetrated by Swiss drug companies. Although the wide variety of reactions has been present since the virus first appeared in the spring, the subsequent failure to come to any global consensus about how swine flu should be treated is producing as many medical reactions as there are national governments.

Look at Ukraine, for example, where public awareness went from "zero" this summer to "panic" this autumn. Late last month, politicians began to speak of mass illness and mass death. The government quarantined several provinces, shut down parliament and banned mass gatherings. When the dust began to settle last week, it appeared that, yes, there had been a small outbreak of swine flu, but also that, no, most of the people who got sick didn't have the H1N1 virus. Swine flu death rates in Ukraine are no higher than those for flu or pneumonia in other years .

None of this has stopped the flu panic from spreading westward faster than the virus itself -- though, again, all of Ukraine's neighbors have behaved differently. Slovakia closed most of its border crossings with Ukraine. Hungary did not close its borders but launched a campaign for mass vaccination. Poland did neither and has so far bought no vaccine , on the grounds that swine flu is actually more benign than ordinary flu and that the vaccine might therefore do more harm than good.

Each of these countries has produced different medical explanations for its actions, and each medical explanation is widely perceived to be a cover for political machinations, at least by the opponents of the relevant government. In Ukraine, a second wave of rumors has it that the flu panic was spread by one or more presidential candidates (elections are scheduled for January), seeking to gain an advantage; the current president has accused the prime minister, who is seeking the presidency, of spending more on her election campaign than on flu response. In Hungary, widespread distrust of a very unpopular government has led to mass refusal to use the expensively purchased vaccine. In Poland, some accuse the health ministry of plain stinginess.

The politicization of disease response is not unique to Eastern Europe; nor are arguments about who gets which treatment. In the United States, an outcry followed the news that employees of Goldman Sachs <javascript:void(0);>  and Citigroup <javascript:void(0);>  got their vaccines before others; a similar scandal erupted in Germany when it emerged that two kinds of vaccine are available -- and that the one perceived as "safer" is going to government officials and the military. Few of the world's democracies will avoid a partisan debate over disease response this flu season, while few of the world's autocracies will avoid wild rumors.

I've written before that a touch of media panic never hurts -- at least it teaches people what the disease in question might be -- but what we're seeing is something different: Not media panic but official panic, inconsistent information and rapid policy changes that seem inspired by political demands, not medical need. It turns out that hardly anyone, anywhere, has thought through the logistics or the morality of rapid vaccine distribution. And hardly anyone knows what to make of the WHO or its Web site. Is the word "pandemic" just medical bureaucratese for a cough and a sore throat? Or does it mean that everyone who isn't vaccinated will die?

Presumably the answer lies somewhere in between, but the WHO hasn't figured out how to explain that. Neither have most national governments. You can train all the doctors you want, but if they can't explain to the public concepts such as "high-risk groups" and "probability" and "some people really need this vaccine but most don't," then every epidemic, severe or mild, will become a public relations disaster. So far, swine flu is not a medical emergency, though no one says that very clearly. And if it becomes one, how will we know?

Eurasia Daily Monitor

November 16, 2009

Ukrainian Presidential Candidate Yulia Tymoshenko’s Foreign Policy

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s 2010 presidential election program is entitled “Ukraine will be victorious. Ukraine that is you” and includes a strong emphasis on Ukraine’s integration into Europe. Tymoshenko’s election program is available, as with other registered presidential candidates, on the Central Election Commission web site (http://www.cvk.gov.ua/vp_2010/kandydaty/index.php).

Tymoshenko’s program differs from that of Viktor Yanukovych and Arseniy Yatseniuk in that it places its main emphasis upon Ukraine for undertaking the reforms needed to facilitate trans-Atlantic integration. Yanukovych and Yatseniuk follow in former President Leonid Kuchma’s tradition of pointing to Brussels, which must first send a “signal” of future membership. Kuchma, Yatseniuk and Yanukovych continue to use the argument that “Ukraine is not wanted in the E.U.,” with Yatseniuk adding NATO to the list of international organizations allegedly disinterested in Ukraine.

Tymoshenko’s election program states that, “I believe that we are capable of raising the level of European standards in democracy, human rights, standards of living, and political culture. And when we will have built Europe in Ukraine, Ukraine will become a member of the European Union” (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua).

Speaking in Lviv to the annual World Congress of Ukrainians (SKU), the body that unites diaspora Ukrainians, Tymoshenko stressed that “Ukraine’s strategy and its future are tied to the European Union.” European integration is not only a foreign policy issue but it also concerns domestic policies. A pro-European foreign policy, Tymoshenko told the SKU, would impact upon every “sector of our life” and we need to plan to “build Europe in Ukraine.” Ukraine would “never be derailed from this direction by any obstacle,” she told the SKU (www.kmu.gov.ua, August 20).

Deputy Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria is Tymoshenko’s preferred candidate for the post of foreign minister if she wins the election. Nemyria has lobbied hard for Ukraine’s European aspirations in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, in the latter two countries enlargement fatigue and russophilism remain influential among the ruling elites. Tymoshenko and Nemyria have successfully lobbied the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the European Parliament. The Fatherland Party, which is led by Tymoshenko, together with the People’s Union-Our Ukraine party, whose honorary chairman is Yushchenko, are members of the EPP.

EPP President Vilfred Martens sent a message of support to Tymoshenko at a mass rally on the Maidan on October 29 where she announced her candidacy. “Your readiness to take upon yourself this difficult decision, including a struggle with corruption, has been recognized throughout the world. You are indeed ready to lead Ukraine and to take her forward as president,” Martens said (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 29). The EPP’s orientation towards Tymoshenko has been evident over the last two years and has led to Yushchenko boycotting EPP summits or visiting EPP delegations.

Nemyria wrote in the August issue of Business Ukraine magazine that the support Ukraine had received during the global economic crisis “from E.U. member states only whets the appetite further (of Ukraine) to become a full member of the world’s largest, most stable trading block.” As with Tymoshenko, Nemyria stated that, “What is of importance is the ‘journey’ to European integration as a means to forge political consensus, stability and lasting prosperity. Today, the conversation for my team is not about potential timeframes for E.U. membership, but about the pace of reform.” Nemyria equates the “Europeanization” of the country as being synonymous with its “modernization.” The global economic crisis “has made it clearer than ever that we need more Europe, not less Europe in Ukraine,” Nemyria argued (Business Ukraine, August 2009). Nemyria differentiated the Tymoshenko team’s approach from that of Yushchenko, “they would desist from declarations of intent that were divorced from domestic policies (a reference to both Kuchma and Yushchenko’s administrations).” This, “thinking ignored the colossal challenge of aligning Ukraine’s constitutional, judicial, economic, industrial and social structures with those of E.U. member states.”

Moreover, her team’s aim to integrate “Ukraine into Europe while seeking to maintain good relations with Russia is equally distant to that pursued by Yushchenko, whose administration has poor relations with Russia, and Yanukovych’s pro-Russian program. Seeking is not the same as obtaining good relations with Russia, as seen in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s emotional condemnation of Tymoshenko signing of an agreement with the E.U. in March to modernize Ukraine’s gas pipelines” (Business Ukraine, August 2009). Nemyria points to three “stepping stones.” Ukraine’s membership of the World Trade Organization in May 2008, the offer of an Association Agreement made at the E.U.-Ukraine summit in Paris in September 2008 and finally, the offer of a “deep and comprehensive” Free Trade Agreement.

Tymoshenko’s program does not include any overt reference to NATO and Nemyria often refers instead to Ukraine’s desire to join the European Security and Defense Program (ESDP), which remains in a formative stage. In summer 2008 Tymoshenko was accused by Yushchenko and his secretariat of backpedaling on NATO membership in return for seeking Moscow’s backing in the 2010 elections.

Among the three main presidential candidates (Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, then Parliamentary Speaker Yatseniuk) who signed the January 2008 letter to NATO seeking a Membership Action Plan (MAP) only Yatseniuk has withdrawn his signature. Tymoshenko bloc (BYuT) deputies and domestic and foreign senior advisers to Tymoshenko include supporters of Ukraine’s NATO membership (as in Our Ukraine). Traditionally, NATO is not mentioned in any election program by even the staunchest pro-NATO political forces, such as Our Ukraine and Yushchenko in 2004. The 2010 election programs of Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and his former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko, who is also a candidate, continue this tradition by making no mention of NATO (www.cvk.gov.ua/vp_2010/kandydaty/index.php).

Tymoshenko’s 2010 program includes an oblique reference to NATO, saying that: “The joining of Ukraine to a collective security system would be decided only on the basis of a referendum” (www.vybory.tymoshenko.ua). This echoes Yushchenko’s position and would leave open the possibility of Ukraine being in a MAP indefinitely, before holding a referendum on joining the Alliance.

In surveying the three leading candidates only Tymoshenko stands on a pro-European foreign policy platform. Yatseniuk has moved away from his pro-Western orientation in 2007-2008 to a “Ukrainian third way” isolationist-nationalism, while Yanukovych offers Ukrainians a more pro-Russian version of Kuchma’s multi-vector foreign policy.

--Taras Kuzio

 

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