UKRAINE SHOULD STRIVE TO BECOME REGIONAL LEADER, PAPER SAYS
Den, Kiev
1 Jun 07, p 4
As Ukraine’s domestic political scene settles down, the country needs
to improve it foreign policy image, an analytical daily has said. The
paper said Ukraine should strive to become a regional leader and make
the most of the GUAM organization. Ukrainian politicians should review
the number of missions around the world and concentrate on areas
where Kiev can lead. The author said Ukraine would certainly join
both the EU and NATO but wondered if it would be in his lifetime. The
following is an excerpt from the article by Andriy Skelya, entitled
"It’s time to get foreign policy sorted" and published in the Ukrainian
newspaper Den on 1 June, subheadings are the paper’s own:
Thankfully, Ukrainian domestic politics is beginning to even
out. People say not for long and not to its full depth and not
across the entire spectrum of issues, but [politicians] will not be
"wrenching" things to such an extent that it is impossible to think
about anything else. Consequently, the time has come to worry about the
country’s external image and to put things in order. In other words,
it’s time to pay attention to foreign priorities.
[Passage omitted: foreign policy is a reflection of domestic policy]
Coordination of foreign policy has a legal basis found in presidential
decree No 841 dated 1996. To a certain extent, it is reflected in
legislation (the law "On diplomatic service", the law "On diplomatic
rank", the law "On Ukraine’s international agreements" and so
forth). In practice, the decree and legislation is often violated. Both
the Cabinet of Ministers and the presidential secretariat, not to
mention the apparatus in parliament, often plan, organize and carry
out visits abroad or within Ukraine without taking into account
professional expertise from the Foreign Ministry. Decisions are
often made without any coordination. This happens not least of all
because of a lack of staff unity across the state’s bodies involved
in foreign relations.
For example, in Canada, France or Romania, there is only one state
protocol service. We, in addition to three services for each of the
three main state structures, also have ministerial, institutional,
external departmental and other "protocol people".
The French protocol chief (and he is not simply the person who sits
the prime minister at the table or places the president in line, he
is also the one who in reality organizes all aspects of international
contact) serves parliament today, the prosecutor-general tomorrow and
the next day works with diplomats in Argentina. Under these conditions
it is simply impossible for the Foreign Ministry to send analytical
material that will not be used in preparing a package of documents
for an official to use at negotiations.
It is also impossible for the prime minister’s apparatus to receive
material (messages), for example, from the Economics Ministry and
for the diplomatic corps to not know about it. In the same European
diplomatic services, the ambassador is the right hand man of the head
of the delegation (the president, prime minister or a minister). During
the visit he is obligated to be nearby in all circumstances. It is
impossible to imagine his absence at negotiations or meetings.
With us, that is possible. And so it happens that during the prime
minister’s visit, he offers to help modernize a partner country’s
domestic technology and it turns out there is no such technology in
that place.
Because the military attache at the embassy was not included in
preparations for the visit. Or the deputy prime minister meets
face-to-face, without the ambassador (confidential!) with a foreign
prime minister and afterwards he only recounts his meeting in part
(he didn’t remember everything).
Meanwhile, the foreign state relates things in its own way, after all –
there were no witnesses from our side! Departments in a rush, tiredness
and pseudo-confidentiality, in short – unstatesmanlike behaviour is
a big illness in the sphere of Ukrainian foreign relations and cannot
be liquidated without real, coordinated effort.
Let me say more. Realizing large investment projects abroad without
attracting diplomats is also an indirect but clear violation of
decree No 841. It is not important whether we are talking about the
Odessa port plant or the Luhansk locomotive plant. Diplomats with an
education in foreign economics who have come as aides in trade issues,
and the ambassadors in important states could give priceless advice
(that is advice which is possibly worth millions) and could protect
the state and its citizens from obvious financial losses.
Since coordination is limping, then it is clear the rule of common
work with the diplomatic corps is not being observed everywhere. And
to this day, many Ukrainian diplomatic missions have both a separate
trade and economic mission (TEM), made up by the Economics Ministry
and subordinate to it, and an economy advisory service formed by the
Foreign Ministry. This is explained by saying the former is foremost
engaged in "trade operations" and the latter studies the economic
potential of the country in which the mission is located. As if
the first can be successfully carried out without the latter on a
long-term basis!
And setting up a TEM to accompany even a large trade deal is a
primitive and unstatesmanlike policy. In normal foreign trade, the
institution of foreign representative offices for supplier companies
exists for that. If the contract ends and there is no prospect of
a new one, then head home guys (gals). But while you are there,
the diplomatic corps will help you if you allow yourself to forget
imaginary "confidentiality".
The way out is clear: a single economic service at the embassy should
include both analysts and executors. Then it can properly inform the
Ukrainian government and give practical advice to Ukrainian companies
active in the country.
Finally, order needs to be brought to both numbers and geographic
presence aboard.
Ukraine now has 87 embassies and permanent missions, and together with
consulates that number of "coloured pins" abroad is over 120. That
number is quite sufficient for a small to medium-size state. One could
probably do without an embassy in Gabon, which they decided to open
two years ago (in order not to provoke a formal discussion, the author
will refrain from naming another five places which could probably be
painlessly closed) and weed out diplomatic missions in Southeast Asia
(here we have Hanoi, Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore and
they are dreaming of Rangoon). In terms of the number of places, we are
comparable to many larger states of the world. For example, there are
not many countries which have embassies in every country of the south
Mediterranean without exception from Morocco to Syria. Except perhaps
the United States, Russia, China, Great Britain France and Germany.
And it would not hurt to cut back staff in some places. Despite
the need for large teams in Moscow, Paris, Berlin and Washington,
we could operate like Sweden in many places: an ambassador, a second
person (politics and public liaison), and a third person (consular and
economic issues). And as for trade, the Swedes also have "company men"
who set up representation for the state or private export-oriented
companies when the need arises.
Let us sum up the organizational part. Ukraine is not a global or
continental state (in terms of determining events on a global or
continental scale), which has to firmly coordinate foreign relations
while playing a leading role in the foreign policy component of this
triad, but should soberly limit its network of missions and staff.
In terms of funding, I will keep my remarks to two facts. Ukrainian
diplomats are in second to fourth place from the end on the scale of
compensation, below the Belarusians by 30 to 60 per cent, one-third
as well off as the Hungarians and five to eight times worse off than
the English and 10 to 12 times worse off than the Americans. Ukrainian
missions have nearly the worst computers and living quarters and they
are very limited by the centre in decision-making and their budgets
are oriented towards getting by.
In other words, we look poor.
Think globally, act locally
But do not rush to accuse the author of a lack of patriotism,
especially those who love to repeat that "Ukraine is a large maritime
state". Foremost, Ukraine is a potential regional state. This is the
second, political conclusion. There is a lot of responsibility and
there are many prospects.
First, because in a globalizing world, global states objectively
begin to fade, but regionalism takes on its own expression and
measure. Neither the Boeing 747 nor the Airbus 380 determine the
flow of passengers. That is done by the hard-working 737 and the A
319 or A 320. And if our ("clean") hands were joined by a wise head,
then the An-148 would have joined them…
[ellipsis as published]
But let’s get back to regionalism. Turkey and Egypt are good examples
of regional states or Kazakhstan in Central Asia, which does not like
to be counted among them. The role of regional states is not so visible
in Europe, which is filled with continentals. Poland could play the
role of a regional state, but Brussels is suppressing it. That’s
good company for Ukraine, isn’t it? Yes, if not for that annoying
"potential".
Ukrainian regionalism demands care, intense, daily proof and provision.
Making claims without confirmation is just words. Confirmation of
Ukraine’s regional role should be the goal of Ukrainian foreign
affairs at this stage.
Naturally, regionalism is not liked by the continentals. The
United States needs a regional Mexico, but only one which supports
Washington’s globalism.
The Russian Federation does not mind the regionalism of Astana or
Kiev, but only on condition they recognize Moscow’s dominance in
the post-Soviet landscape and even better in Eurasia and Central
and Eastern Europe (and essentially, that is what claims to a global
position demand). The same can be said of China – Japan or China –
Vietnam and so forth. The law of force in international life is natural
and as in anything, it should not be taken as an offence. Just as this
law gives the little ones the right to protect their regionalism from
encroachment by the big players.
And what is "Ukraine’s region"? It would seem it could include Belarus,
Moldova, three nations in the south Caucasus – again we point out –
potentially. Because Turkey wants to include the latter three in its
own region, while Iran is competing for Armenia with Russia. Besides,
Russia does not want "to give up" Belarus to Ukrainian influence,
and part of the Romanian political elite plans to incorporate
Moldova. Consequently, the "Ukrainian region" is a conditional and
it is not a given – it is a task.
The existence of a region is possible only when it is beneficial
to all its participants. A region is a defence against globalism,
it is a mechanism for achieving regional projects and a means of
de-monopolization on the continental level. And the regional leader
must give more than it gets in terms of economics or security as it
gains somewhat in terms of status, that is, politically. Since some
regions are small (for example, Portugal has historically been the only
participant in the region along with Spain, except for little Andorra),
Ukraine does not need to worry itself about numbers, but rather concern
itself with quality (reliability). Today, the Ukrainian region is
expressed in the GUAM organization (the Organization for Democratic
and Economic Development – Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova,
also known as ODED-GUAM). Since Russia has built its own "CIS super
region" and built it unsuccessfully, and since after the collapse
of the Central Asia Union, GUAM remains the only alternative to the
CIS and the Eurasian Economic Community [EAEC], Russia is trying to
destroy GUAM.
We are not talking about the natural lack of desire a big player
has to allow little players to be out of its control (as discussed
above). On the world arena that is a mundane thing. But the methods
vary. For example, in a desire to "control" Canada and Mexico, the
United States created an economically-equal market, the North America
Free Trade Agreement.
In 1993-95, Russia offered exactly that to Ukraine in return for a
politicized CIS. It did not happen: Russia did not agree to a free
trade zone with no limits or exceptions, taking fuel and timber and so
forth off the table. One of the consequences was the formation of GUAM.
In contrast to the unequal EAEC, where a larger economy has a bigger
vote, GUAM is a consensual organization with a rotating chair. It
is gradually moving from making lots of papers and declarations,
to giving political weight to mutually-advantageous economic
projects. Foremost among these are energy, transport, infrastructure
and agriculture. GUAM needs to put in place privileged economic
relations with neighbouring regions such as Turkey, Poland and
Kazakhstan in order to be successful. Such a project would make it
possible to improve competition on the landscape stretching from
the Baltic to the Black and Caspian seas, it would deprive Russia
of its supremacy temptations (that is the Chinese term from the
1970s), and would bring the landscape between the EU and the Russian
federation to a modern business and political culture. Ukraine’s role
in achieving this is the determining factor. And it has every chance
of being achieved.
Recognition and movement are all that is needed.
And it that all? No, that is not all.
As in any article which is dedicated to the topic of Ukrainian foreign
relations, it is here that the moment arises to ask: and what about
Russia?
NATO? The EU? Where to go (this last question is accompanied by a
note of despair)? In other words, in what global coordinates does
Ukraine find itself?
Actually, as follows from the authors thoughts as expressed above,
there is no need to go anywhere. Or as the ancient Greeks said,
"Here is Rhodes, this is where you jump."
There is no reason to go, simply because "they" will come to us
themselves.
The history of the past 50 years, and especially the past 10, clearly
shows that both the EU and NATO are coming to us, eastward, while
we remain where we are. If we worked a bit better on ourselves,
they would already be at the door (of the president, speaker and
prime minister) and be offering us to join both NATO and the European
Commonwealth. But Ukrainians have their own special mistakes" as much
as "the Soviets have their own special pride". The author sincerely
believes Ukraine will be a member of both organizations, but he is
not holding his breath that it will happen during his lifetime.
And the same time, speeding up the movement of the EU and NATO east to
"Ukrainian region" territory can already be done today by washing away
some myths and creating some realities. And this is very important
to achieving Ukrainian interests in its relations with the world.
EU
We’ll begin with the European Union. Ukraine is now negotiating with
the EU on entering a New Intensified Agreement (a working title) in
place of the Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation (APC) from 1994.
Due to internal-organizational and national-political ("country")
reasons, the EU is not ready to give an affirmative answer to the
question of Ukrainian membership today, although in many parameters our
state is more "European" than some candidates and even members. It is
significantly lacking in just one area: the lack of supremacy of the
law (which can be divided into social corruption, economic corruption
or "bribes" and political corruption). The biggest task is to make
an obligatory agreement which would envision the EU side promising
to begin negotiations on Ukraine’s membership should the Ukrainian
side fulfil all the conditions of the agreement. And the conditions
should be approximately the same as for the last countries accepted
into the EU (Bulgaria and Romania in 2007).
Ukraine’s membership is good for both Brussels and Moscow. The first
gets 45m more consumers and significant production and infrastructure
resources.
The second, as an influential player on the Ukrainian market, gets
another channel of access for its manufacturers to the EU market via
Ukraine. This is important to Moscow because it is not planning to
join the EU in the foreseeable future.
NATO
Things are worse with NATO. Russia is categorically against Ukraine
joining NATO. Ukrainian diplomats have been trying to find arguments
to change Russia’s position. The author is aware of an argument that
by joining NATO, Ukraine would objectively put the brakes on any
aggressive moods in NATO (read Washington) with regard to Russia,
and consequently through Ukraine Russia would gain a "veto" vote on
NATO decisions. That is hard to believe.
First, NATO does not have aggressive intentions against Russia. NATO
is also Sweden, Slovakia and Greece, by the way. Have you ever heard
about their aggressive intentions towards Russia?
And neither Ukraine nor any other member of NATO can put the brakes
on "Washington’s aggressive intentions towards Russia" if you accept
that approach. Because what Washington now wants to achieve in the
world and what NATO is – those are two different things. The best
example of that is events in Iraq. NATO did not agree to go to Iraq,
and the United States went without NATO. Don’t forget that NATO was
established in 1949 foremost to protect West European countries from
being conquered by the Soviet Union.
After Germany was destroyed, the USSR had a huge continental army from
1946-49 and with a big enough desire, could have moved it west and
reached Brest in a few weeks (on the Atlantic coast of France). Things
changed, and now NATO drifts from being a military alliance towards
becoming a military-political union, and Russia is perfectly aware
of the lack of any threat from it. Another proof of this is the tale
of creating a global anti-missile defence system in the United States
of America is creating outside of NATO. Because it wants to have its
hands free, while NATO countries want to "compel" the United States to
give up control over the system to NATO. That is, Russia understands
NATO is not a threat, but rather probably the only structure which
restrains US decisions. And there you have your aggressive bloc,
"Ne Tak [Not Right]" people [the "Ne Tak" staged rallies against
NATO in summer 2006, notably in Crimea ahead of joint Ukraine-NATO
training exercises].
Sometimes a different argument is used. The past 15 years has shown the
Euro-Atlantic community has been able to play off Russia’s jealousy
regarding Ukraine’s intentions. Ukraine was the first to sign the
above-mentioned APC agreement with the EU and immediately Russia
followed suit. Then Ukraine was first to join the Partnership for
Peace programme offered by NATO to former members of the Warsaw Pact
and post-Soviet countries as a sign of the end of the cold war. Then
Russia followed. Then Ukraine was the first to begin the difficult
negotiation process on the Agreement of a Special Partnership
between Ukraine and NATO and create the Ukraine-NATO Commission,
which first provoked Russia’s resistance, and then its interest,
and in the end Russia signed similar agreements with the Alliance –
and did so demonstrably a day before Ukraine did (in 1997).
And finally, the newly worked out agreements on readmission and
on simplified visa regimes with Europe and the new intensified
agreement are under way in both the Slavic neighbours "as if in a
race". Consequently, sometimes people say that in accepting Ukraine,
NATO is giving Russia an incentive to join as well.
It is hard to agree with that. Because Moscow sees the possible
acceptance of any post-Soviet country into NATO as a threat to its
claims to be a global state. We are not talking about money and
economics (not about a serving of pottage), but about affairs with
the European Community, and the right of the first-born, which the
Kremlin believes was confirmed by its place on the UN security Council
and the G8 and reinforced by nuclear weapons.
Of course, this does not mean Ukraine has no road to NATO. If such is
decided by the president, the government and the majority in parliament
and confirmed in a national referendum, then all objections will be
ignored, as in the case of the Baltic states. But compared to the EU,
which Ukraine will take a long time to join but which is logical for
all three (the EU, Ukraine and Russia), Kiev’s membership in NATO
is not accepted by today’s political elite in Moscow. And it looks
like tomorrow will feel no different. And so it is in this issue
that the Ukrainian political elite must have a full-fledged internal
dialogue to determine its course. Something like the dialogue the
Romanian elite held in 1993, when they adopted a consensus among many
parties on foreign relations. A consensus upheld despite all internal
political conflicts and crises. Never, imagine this, never since 1993
did any single party in Romania use membership in the EU or NATO as
a political condition in internal disputes.
One thing should be added to the above: a strong and consistent
regional position is our biggest card in membership to both the EU
and NATO and it is authority on the continental level. It is regional
unity which made it possible for regional groups to climb the steps to
these organizations – the Visegrad four (Poland, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Hungary), the Baltic trio (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia)
and the pair of Romania and Bulgaria.
[Passage omitted: Foreign policy tied to foreign economic policy.]
And so, three conclusions: organizational, political and economic. In
the post-Soviet landscape, in which Ukraine still resides and which
it will leave when negotiations begin on joining the EU, the role of
the state in general and the government in particular is much larger
in comparison than it is for European states.
I will not begin to argue whether Ukraine needs a deputy prime
minister for agriculture (not a specific person, but the post). But
it most certainly needs the post of deputy prime minister for foreign
relations, which would coordinate all three components and control the
problem of European integration. That does not mean I am suggesting
an administrative resolution to a systemic problem. Simply this is
the time "of temporary imperative mandates". And the challenges of
such a time need to be properly addressed.