The Orange Revolution – is its beauty more than skin-deep?

Date: 10/03/05

The drama of Ukraine's disputed presidential election was obvious to all. The contest between Viktor Yanukovich, the Russian-backed candidate, and Viktor Yushchenko, the candidate supported by the West, personified the tension within Ukraine about where that nation's future might lie. This drama was magnified by the demonstrations on the streets and by the alleged poisoning of Yushchenko.

It is clear to all that things have changed, but less clear to what extent and with what effect.

How should the EU respond to events in Ukraine? Does the Orange Revolution constitute an irreversible shift towards Europe? Or must the EU offer more inducements to keep Kiev westward-bound? Have the political changes been matched by a similar shift in Ukraine's economic future?

The Orange Revolution offers the hope, doused with a healthy measure of Slavic scepticism, that the Ukrainians might become a little richer and a lot more listened to by their leaders. Whether this is so will be determined by the way the government attempts to tackle unemployment, corruption and the tyranny of big business, all of which flourished under the government of Leonid Kuchma.

The EU's influence in Ukraine now appears to equal that of Russia, even though Russian imports and energy are massively important to Kiev, but there seem to be few signs of a paradigm shift in Brussels or elsewhere.

Europe's capitals, it seems, are digesting the new geopolitical reality at different speeds and reacting in different ways. The EU is still struggling to reconcile a paradox of its Neighbourhood policy: it garners enormous leverage over neighbours and so over its own security by offering membership, but that leverage becomes increasingly unwieldy as it admits new members.

The fact that many European capitals, at least at the moment, need Russia more than Russia needs them means that Moscow remains the key consideration in France, Italy and elsewhere. Consequently, talk of admitting the Ukraine as a member remains highly controversial.

Whether Ukraine's revolution is a delayed shake-out from the collapse of the USSR or the emergence of a new geopolitical reality, with the EU at its centre, is still to be explored.

Analytical feature on the future of Ukraine, its geopolitical orientation and its relation to the European Union, two months after regime change of late 2004.