Ukraine ‘fix’ to haunt EU-Russia talks

Date: 25/11/04

By David Cronin

UKRAINE'S Central Election Commission has confirmed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich the winner of last weekend's presidential election despite warnings that failure to review the results would damage the former Soviet state's relations with the EU.

The announcement yesterday afternoon (24 November) came shortly after European Commission President José Manuel Barroso raised concerns that the poll did not meet democratic standards.

With thousands of supporters of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko continuing to protest in Kiev last night, Ukraine looks set to dominate today's EU-Russia summit in The Hague.

While Vladimir Putin was swift to recognize his ally Yanukovich as the winner, Barroso said he had a duty to tell the Russian president of his unease about suspected vote-rigging.

The European Parliament appears likely to pass a resolution at its session next week (1-2 December), refusing to recognize the outcome of the election.

Polish MEP Anna Elzbieta Fotyga said she was “pretty much convinced that massive fraud and manipulation of the electoral process” occurred, after monitoring the election in the region surrounding Lvov, the largest city in western Ukraine.

Among the perceived irregularities she witnessed were “falsified ballots” being submitted, lacking the required stamp and in some cases a different colour to the legitimate ballot paper.

Hans-Gert Pöttering, leader of the Parliament's biggest group, the European People's Party (EPP-ED), said: “The European Union and the international community must contribute to revealing all fraudulent incidents during these elections and to achieving a revision of the official election results.” He also described Putin's support for Yanukovich as “interference in the internal politics of a neighbouring country”.

Privately, EU officials were hoping that the pro-western Yushchenko would beat Yanukovich.

One consequence of the electoral fraud allegations is that the EU executive has stalled on adopting an action plan for closer ties with Kiev.

This was to be part of a package of measures undertaken as part of the European Neighbourhood Policy, which allows countries bordering the Union to take part in EU activities.

Because of the situation in Ukraine, the action plans for Israel, Moldova, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are also on hold.

Ukrainian diplomats were angered by the delays as they believed the technical details of the action plan had been agreed for many weeks.

The other main hurdle to advancing the Neighbourhood Policy had been a disagreement with Israel over language referring to weapons of mass destruction and the extent of the EU's role in the Middle East peace process.

But diplomatic sources say an accord on the outstanding issues has been reached between the Commission and representatives of Ariel Sharon's government in the past fortnight.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer yesterday said that a review of the Ukrainian election was “absolutely essential”.

Article discusses the effects that the allegedly fraudulent Presidential elections in Ukraine might have on EU-Russia relations and on the European Neighbourhood Policy.