At Odds With Europe, and Itself

Relations between the Council of Europe and Kiev have probably never been worse, and it is a clash that is deepening the rifts that crisscross Ukraine’s political scene. by Ivan Lozowy 19 February 2004 Ukraine and the Council of Europe, an international body that sees itself as a watchdog of democracy in Europe, have clashed on numerous occasions. Since 1999, the persistent discrepancy between Ukraine’s European aspirations and its commitment has prompted the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to adopt five resolutions threatening Ukraine with suspension for failing to comply with its commitments. It has damned Ukraine’s legislative reforms, its failure to protect journalists and the media, its conduct of specific investigations--such as that of the highly controversial murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze in 2000--and specific policy initiatives, including a political “reform” package initiated in April 2000.

These criticisms have long irked Ukrainian authorities. But the sixth and latest PACE resolution on Ukraine--adopted on 29 January--has brought the sharpest exchanges yet between Ukraine and PACE. They could lead to an international-relations crisis and make Ukraine’s suspension from the Council of Europe a real possibility.

The trigger for the resolution was concern about the continued efforts by President Leonid Kuchma and his government to change Ukraine’s constitutional system. Using strong and biting language, the resolution criticized a vote in Ukraine’s parliament that sought constitutional changes that would, for example, see the president elected by parliament, limit the terms in office of judges, and expand the powers of the General Prosecutor’s Office (a “super-watchdog” whose job is to keep an eye on all state offices, including the judiciary, and which, in practice, has become an additional lever of power in the hands of the president).

The opposition had wanted to prevent the bill receiving a reading, but it did eventually go before parliament on 24 December. However, when it arrived in parliament, the speaker, Volodymyr Lytvyn, avoiding any debate of the draft, simply calling for a show of hands in a corner of the assembly hall (an almost unprecedented decision, partly prompted by major disruption by the opposition, some of whose members disabled the electronic voting system). Lytvyn eventually reported that 276 deputies had voted in favor.

The PACE said the vote breached standard voting procedures, Ukraine’s constitution, and also Ukraine’s obligations to the Council of Europe. In December, before the vote, the Council of Europe's chief legal consultative body--commonly known as the Venice Commission, properly the European Commission for Democracy Through Law--had already reviewed the provisions of the draft bill and labeled them “a step backward.”

So the Ukrainian administration knew what was coming when Hanne Severinsen and Renate Wohlwend, PACE rapporteurs charged with overseeing the fulfillment of obligations by member states, visited Ukraine in mid-January.

They knew so well that on 20 January, a week before the rapporteurs had even announced their findings, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement claiming that the rapporteurs were “interfering in the internal affairs” of Ukraine. (It had made similar statements before, prompting the PACE to say, in December, that it “deeply regretted” the position taken by Ukraine’s government.)

The coverage of the PACE visit in the media, which is largely controlled by the state or businessmen linked to the ruling political elite, was even more pejorative. Television reports, for instance, uniformly condemned the rapporteurs as biased and “in thrall” to the opposition.

Indeed, coverage of the rapporteurs’ visit was so similar that it only lent credence to well-documented claims that Kuchma and his presidential administration make extensive use of temnyky, “shadow” instructions issued to the media on how to cover events--a practice already condemned in an earlier PACE resolution.

Kuchma and his administration were doubtless irritated that Severinsen and Wohlwend, like most independent observers, see the efforts to reform the constitutional as intimately linked to the presidential elections due in October and the ruling elite’s desire to retain power--and, if they lose it, to limit the opposition’s power.

“Carrying out constitutional reforms a few months before the presidential elections is unacceptable,” the rapporteurs wrote. They also criticized the Constitutional Court of Ukraine’s decision in late December to allow Kuchma to run for a third term, sidestepping a clause in the constitution that limits a president to two terms.

Severinsen and Wohlwend’s report went even further, characterizing the constitutional reform efforts as an attempt by the “former communist elite which has retained a practically unbroken hold on power in Ukraine since independence … to maintain and to re-establish control over society at all cost.” Such language must have been particularly irksome for Kuchma. It certainly riled a Kuchma supporter in parliament, Oleksandr Zadorozhny, who labeled Severinsen and Wohlwend “two crazy ladies, who have no idea what is going on in Ukraine.”

Mykhailo Pohrebynsky, a political analyst close to the head of the Presidential Administration, Viktor Medvedchuk, ascribed the PACE’s position to the fact that opposition parliamentarians know English better than representatives of the pro-presidential majority and thus have better access. To this Severinsen responded by noting that the opposition’s parliamentary deputies also “have stronger arguments and understand European values better.”

SPLITTING THE OPPOSITION, SPLITTING FROM THE WEST

Kuchma’s only public comment, to Kiev’s diplomatic corps on 6 February, was to express regret that the PACE had “thrown oil on the fire” and “stimulated some of the opposition to become irreconcilable.”

The more potent reaction came from his chief of staff, Medvedchuk. He promptly showed that some of the opposition is reconcilable, by co-opting a key figure in the opposition, Socialist Party Chairman Oleksandr Moroz. After talks with Medvedchuk, Moroz and his supporters voted on 3 February in favor of an amendment to the constitutional bill, removing the provision that parliament would elect the president. The vote passed with a majority of 304 out of 450 votes, prompting Moroz’s partners in the opposition to accuse him of betrayal.

In this respect Kuchma’s strategy of splitting the opposition seems to be working. Since the 3 February vote, Moroz has publicly hinted that he may run for president, despite the general expectation that Viktor Yushchenko, head of the opposition Our Ukraine faction and Ukraine’s most popular politician, would represent the opposition.

It also gave the pro-government media an opportunity to argue that, with this one change, the dispute with the PACE would be resolved. A convenient piece of spin, and also an economy with the truth: PACE had a large number of serious additional reservations. Also ignored was the principal criticism contained in both the PACE resolution and the rapporteurs’ report: namely, that constitutional changes affecting the upcoming presidential elections cannot legitimately be adopted just several months prior to the elections themselves.

Yet Kuchma and his principal “fixer,” Medvedchuk, can claim a victory of sorts. The big vote on 3 February has been presented by Ukraine’s largely compliant media as, in some fashion, “legitimizing” the highly flawed vote held on 24 December, a vote that had in fact been criticized by the PACE.

The seriousness of the row between Kiev and the Council of Europe is an indication of the stakes in play. Kuchma and his entourage have assiduously pursued a strategy of changing the rules of the game in order to forestall the possibly dire consequences of a presidential victory for the opposition--a general shake-up, an anti-corruption drive, and an investigation of Kuchma’s role in illegal arms deals and the murder of Gongadze. Since Viktor Yushchenko has by far the highest poll ratings, there is a very real threat to the oligarchs, such as Medvedchuk himself or Kuchma’s son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk, who have accrued vast wealth during Kuchma’s tenure.

One ally, if not the sole supporter, of Ukraine’s pro-presidential majority in the conflict with the PACE, is Russia. Its representative at the PACE (and deputy speaker of the Russian Duma), Dmitri Rogozin, sided with Ukraine’s pro-presidential delegates, describing PACE’s review of the crisis as unwarranted and the 24 December vote in Ukraine’s parliament as legitimate. It is perhaps no coincidence that Rogozin has in the past warned that a Yushchenko presidency would signal the victory of “radical nationalist” circles in Ukraine. Ukraine’s exclusion from the PACE would be welcomed not only by Rogozin but by wider political circles in Russia, anxious to bring Ukraine ever closer politically and economically.

In the past, Kuchma has repeatedly complained that “no one is waiting” for Ukraine in Europe. His chances of finding anyone waiting will be even slimmer if his “reforms” are passed. If the presidential elections were to prove deeply flawed, the problem would be compounded. The result would be a very serious confrontation within Ukraine. Already a number of opposition deputies have explicitly called for Ukraine’s expulsion if Kuchma’s continues with his constitutional changes. The Council of Europe, usually loath to sanction members, would find itself under pressure--and, in the midst of a major crisis and after so many warnings, it might take action.

Whether or not Ukraine is suspended from the PACE, the current confrontation--the most serious yet--is exacerbating Kuchma’s alienation, distancing Ukraine from the West and, potentially, drawing it even closer to Russia. It could also damage Ukraine’s bid to enter the World Trade Organization this year. For the opposition, which is betting on a win in the all-important presidential elections in eight months' time, the risk is worth the gain.

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Recent articles from Ukraine can be found on our Ukraine country file, at http://ukraine.tol.cz.