by
Martin Banks
The appeal by the Brussels-based EU/Ukraine Business Council, comes amid ongoing demonstrations in Kiev and fresh talks between the EU and Ukraine.
Two week ago after Ukraine failed to sign an EU Ukraine Association Agreement in Vilnius, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych has sent his First Vice Prime Minister Sergiy Arbuzov to meet with EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule to discuss relations between the two sides.
James Wilson, of the Business Council, said there are hopes the deal can be revived.
He said, "Ukrainian business is deeply concerned about recent events but Arbuzov belongs to a new generation of younger politicians who are determined to see that the government remains on a European path.
"He will be arguing for more favourable terms for EU Association in the form of additional financial aid. Europe needs to listen to his message; both the EU and Ukraine must share collective blame for railroading a draft agreement which imposes expensive obligations on Ukraine for compliance.
"Arbuzov as a realist is not in the game of signing agreements that he cannot afford to implement."
"Whatever the outcome of their meeting, Commissioner Fule has a unique chance to share with Arbuzov the financial consequences which could occur for Ukraine if the Ukrainian Government does not act in the best interests of the 46 million citizens who have entrusted them with power under the Constitution of Ukraine."
Wilson, a respected expert on Ukraine, has just returned from Kiev where he witnessed the protests at first hand.
He said, "Talking to the demonstrators on Tuesday morning on Kyiv’s Maidan, who included Ukrainian Olympic athletes and patriots, proudly wearing their Olympic uniforms, I was struck by their determination to achieve change for the better for their country.
"It was minus 13 degrees, and not the best conditions to be spending a night under canvas. I appreciated the cup of hot tea I was served from the smoky fires behind the barricades.
"The mood was tense and nervous, as the opposition headquarters had just been stormed by a heavily armed SWAT team, and the protesters were expecting the worst."
He added, "Public trust in Ukraine was weakened when President Yanukovych ordered massed riot police action against protesters in the early morning of 11 December, a surprising act given that both EU High Representative Catherine Ashton and US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland were visiting Kyiv at the time."
He asks, "Was this an error of political judgement, or is the President losing control of the Country, perhaps through disinformation being fed to him by his advisers?"
"Yanukovych has one overriding aim: to win the March 2015 presidential elections at all costs. He appears ready to pay any price, including a slide into dictatorship or becoming a client state of Russia. The real power behind the President is the murky entity known as "the family".
"This refers to several fabulously wealthy ministers and associates who have been growing their businesses in Ukraine at an unbelievably fast rate often by acting ruthless predators.
"What should Europe say and do?
"Europe has only one obvious choice in the clear absence of pro-democracy behaviour from Yanukovych. That choice is to apply pressure to the financial interests around President Yanukovych."
By: N. Peter Kramer
