MEPs join demands for Tymoshenko to be freed ahead of EU trade deal

by Martin Banks

The demand from a group of cross party MEPs comes after the EU on Thursday gave the Ukrainian parliament a week to pass legislation allowing the release of Tymoshenko.

The EU has made this a condition if Kiev wants to sign a key integration treaty with the 28-country bloc.

Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year term on abuse of office charges, which the West has condemned as politically motivated.

President Viktor Yanukovych and his allies in parliament have resisted that pressure to free her.

The two EU envoys - former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and former European Parliament President Pat Cox - have told Ukrainian legislators to adopt a law by 13 November that would allow Tymoshenko to be flown to Germany for medical treatment.

Tymoshenko was convicted of abuse of office while negotiating a gas deal with Russia in 2009.

She insists she is innocent and accuses Yanukovych of ordering her imprisonment in order to bar her from challenging him in the 2015 presidential election.

The controversy has been a key obstacle in the signing of an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine, which would establish a free-trade zone and bolster political and other ties.

The agreement is due to be signed at a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania on 28 and 29 November.

Russia has strongly opposed Kiev's plan to sign the deal and has sought to lure Ukraine into a Moscow-led economic union instead, mixing promises of economic benefits with sanctions and threats.

In a new move, several MEPs have lined up to demand the release of Tymoshenko before the deal is done.

They include William Dartmouth, the trade and foreign affairs spokesman for the UK Independence Party.

He said, "Ms Tymoshenko is now in prison on what looked like trumped up charges. The prison sentence was seven years. There can and should be no question of any Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine until this matter is satisfactory resolved."

He added, "Further, there can and should be no question of the Ukraine becoming a candidate country far less joining the EU. It should be made crystal clear that any Association Agreement is in no way, shape or form a stepping stone to membership."

His comments are echoed by another British MEP Roger Helmer, who said, "As a general rule I don't think that we should make trade deals dependent on interventions in the other party's domestic politics or labour or environmental conditions. If we did, almost any deal would be challenged by aggressive NGOs.

"However in this case the treatment of Yulia Tymoshenko has been so egregious and anti-democratic that I believe the EU would right to make any Ukraine deal conditional upon the freedom of the former Prime Minister."

The European Parliament's foreign affairs committee recently adopted a report which contains a provision stating that the EU should only sign the agreement at the Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius if Kiev meets all the necessary conditions, including freeing the former PM.

The report was authored by senior Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (European People's Party), who said he fully endorses the continued EU demand that Tymoshenko must be freed before the trade deal "can even be considered."

The deputy, a former chairman of the committee, said there was still time for her to be released, adding, “The situation is not good but not hopeless either. The Vilnius Summit will not be the end of the process, just the beginning. We need to look beyond Vilnius."

He added,"The main condition is to address the issue of selective justice through releasing Tymoshenko. If this doesn't happen, the EU probably will not sign this agreement. One should state this clearly, because Kyiv still has some illusions."

The MEP, a former Polish government minister, also said that Ukraine's progress in fulfilling the conditions for the signing of the agreement was "good, but not perfect."

A delegation of European Conservatives and Reformists Group MEPs recently met Yanukovych to express their hopes for a successful Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius at the end of this month.

The group, headed by ECR leader Martin Callanan, was in Kiev for meetings earlier this month ahead of a number of critical moments in EU-Ukrainian relations, including a Ukraine parliamentary debate on allowing Tymoshenko to travel abroad for treatment, and a decision by the EU’s Foreign Affairs Council on whether to sign the agreement with Ukraine.

Callanan expressed his hope that the Council will be in a position to sign the agreement, which it committed to doing once it saw ‘determined action and tangible progress’ by Ukraine.

Callanan said, “We were in Kiev to reinforce that we want the EU to be in a position where it can sign the greement later this month. The ECR has been a leading advocate of strengthening relations with Ukraine but only provided basic values are maintained.

“We have an opportunity in the next few weeks to anchor the EU and Ukraine together in a new relationship. We hope that Ukraine will take the opportunity, which we believe will be in both our interests.”

Further comment came from Pawel Kowal, chairman of the parliament’s delegation to the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, who believes that if the agreement is not signed this month a real possibility for signing it may emerge no sooner than 2015.

He said, "Formally it can be done whenever you like. But when will the next opportunity emerge? Will it be after the 2014 elections in Europe? If it is not signed this month, there is a real possibility that we wil not return to this agreement until after 2015."

"In March or April next year who will care about Ukraine's business when there will be elections to the European Parliament? The same could be said of late next year when there will be new Parliament and new European Commission. Will it be possible to care about Ukraine? Politically, no," said Kowal.

He too said the agreement will not be signed at Vilnius if the Tymoshenko case remains unresolved.

Kowal added, "We in my group will continue to act as an honest broker in the interests of improving EU-Ukrainian relations and providing a satisfactory outcome to the Tymoshenko case.”

Elsewhere, Charles Tannock, ECR foreign affairs spokesman, said, "Economically and politically this agreement is of benefit to both sides and we look to Ukraine to do what is needed to ensure its signature this month."

Cox and Kwasniewski, who have been shuttling between Brussels and Kiev for more than 18 months on a mission to nail down a deal over Tymoshenko,are early next week likely to visit her in the northern town of Kharkiv, where she is receiving hospital treatment under prison guard.