Gennadz Maksak: In Ukraine we look upon the future of the Eastern Partnership with optimism

Belarus recognizes the stagnation of the Eastern Partnership and its inability to operatively react to the challenges that its countries-members are facing. How does Ukraine see the future of the EaP?

This question “EuroBelarus” Information Service asked Gennadz Maksak, a member of the Steering Committee of the EaP Civil Society Forum, the President of International and regional Research Polesky foundation (Ukraine).

- It is hard to give just a commentary to this broad question. Let’s find out why for this moment it is impossible to consider the EaP to be the history of success.

“Eastern Partnership” program was initiated by Poland in 2008. It was meant to strengthen the European Neighborhood Policy after ODER-GUAM (Organization for Democracy and economic Development) finally disappeared, as well as to prevent Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine from closer integration with Russia.

During the five years of its existence, this policy was transformed a lot and different experts give different assessments of it.

The major attractive moments of this policy in comparison with other cooperation forms are the presence of multilateral track of cooperation and the possibility to sign Association Agreement, which is a more advanced step compared with an Agreement on partnership and cooperation on bilateral track. Among other benefits are also a free trade zone and the possibility to get visa-free regime with the EU in case each country-partner is fulfilling its obligations. On the whole, in the beginning it was a very attractive perspective.

However, upon implementing this program some very important problems showed up. And those problems questioned EaP as a certain innovative package deal that is equally useful for everyone. First, we can outline several political factors, which are negatively affecting effectiveness and productivity of the EaP.

1)   EU underestimated the importance of the Eastern Partnership region for Russia.

The fact that Russia was underrated is openly discussed in Brussels since Ukrainian developments in 2013-2014. When this initiative was being elaborated, Kremlin resolutely said that it was a direct interference in its prioritized interests. When Russia didn’t start counteracting the development of EU-EaP countries cooperation, the EU thought Russia gave the EaP a “green light”. However, later it became clear that this strategy chosen by Russian authorities was aimed at lulling the vigilance.

And even when in September 2013 Armenia refused to continue negotiations about the Association Agreement, the EU didn’t fully realize the decidedness of Vladimir Putin’s intention to expel the EU from the region. When Viktor Yanukovich was ready to make the same somersault in November 2013, everything became fully clear. It were Ukrainians who got indignant after they were deprived of European dream and were cheated by Yanukovich and his associates, not Brussels. The next factor comes out of EU’s shortsighted behavior.

2)   An attempt to use EU economic motivation as an alternative to geopolitically proven leverages that Russia uses.

If Brussels defines geopolitics as something that has nothing to do with reality, Russia is openly using a set of traditional geopolitics instruments to scare off countries-partners from the European integration. With varied success some countries had to take Russia’s side and considerably reduced speed in their movement towards Eastern Partnership.

3)   Predominance of long-term EaP development strategies over the tangible short-term projects.

“It’s hard to refuse when Russia is suggesting, but it’s hard to understand when the EU is talking”. Unfortunately, strategies, which are correct from the political and governmental perspective in developed democracies, were absolutely inadequate for the region where strong authoritarian traditions still remain. In our countries a suggestion of long-term reforming process with the possibility to get profit in the far future didn’t always found response in the heads of the ruling class.

4)   Predominance of “EU-partnering country” line of cooperation on bilateral track over multilateral track.

What was earlier praised as an innovative character of the EaP transformed into its Achilles heel. The successes in multilateral cooperation are more than modest and don’t exceed the level of exchanging experience and announcement of political statements. EaP Civil Society Forum is still looking for its identity as a multilateral area of cooperation in non-governmental sector.

5)   Heterogeneity of the countries united by the common policy of the Eastern Partnership.

Basically, the countries were put in one race with certain good at the end of it. And as the countries-partners differ in the vision of the final goal of their cooperation their movement towards the EU can’t really be called equal.

If we don’t take into account geographical principle, it would we hard to trace the logic of including all the countries in this initiative, since the countries are very different.

Ukraine in the Eastern Partnership

All the above said makes it possible to understand why EaP policy wasn’t as successful as it developers planned initially.

It might well be that Belarus got disappointed in the Eastern Partnership, taking into account the negligible political dialog with the authorities. Bilateral format of the EaP for Belarus will soon be burdened by the peculiarities of the internal political situation in the country. That is why back in 2009 the official Minsk was highly interested in multilateral format as an instrument of improving economic situation without the need to carry out fundamental internal political reforms.

As to Ukraine in the EaP, judging from the earlier listed facts we can say that though it was a thorny path, it also was more successful in comparison with Belarus, even though initially Ukrainian Foreign Ministry was skeptical about the EaP, as it was hard to discern the so-called “added value” of this policy for Ukraine. The thing is that Ukraine started negotiations about the enhanced agreement on cooperation as far back as 2007, so bilateral format didn’t bring anything new for the official Kiev.

Still, after 5 years of being a part of EaP program Ukraine can total the balance of pros and cons.

First of all, the EU Association Agreement is signed, and all independent researches are indicating positive results from it.

Ukraine has reached certain progress in moving towards visa-free regime; and according to the optimistic scenario, in 2015 Ukrainians will be included in the EU visa-free zone.

Ukraine has started a process of large-scale reforms in such vital spheres, as the highest authorities, a constitutional reform, an anticorruption reform, decentralization of authorities and so on. It is hard to predict how long and painful this process will be, but there is no doubt that it is needed for the further development of the country.

But from my point of view, the biggest influence that the EaP is exerting on Ukraine is the awakening of the civil society. Millions of Ukrainians went out at Maidan, demanding the signing of the Agreement; it became our symbol.

At the non-governmental level serious work on inclusion civil society in the decision-making processes, consultations and monitoring is going on in Ukraine now. Third sector is to become a force that the authorities will have to take into account.

It is unclear how the Eastern Partnership will be developing further. Brussels has some ambitious plans for its modernization, but everything will depend on whether the systemic mistakes I enumerated above will be considered. Ukrainians look upon the future of the EaP with optimism, though we understand that a lot will depend on us. We are ready. We just have no other alternative, as Russia is prompting.