Ukraine’s decision to freeze EU negotiations sparks protests
Anna Sonny, 29 November 2013
President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to freeze negotiations with the EU on a possible Association Agreement has sparked a wave of protests across the country. The Eastern Partnership Summit, which began yesterday in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius, has not begun well for EU leaders, who were hoping to secure a pact with Ukraine after years of build up to the talks. The Ukrainian public have come out in their thousands to demand closer ties to Europe, calling on the president to sign the agreement.
Seated in the Eastern corner of Europe, between an ever-expanding European Union and a powerful Russia, Ukraine is finding itself torn between a European bloc that is desperate to welcome it in and a Russia that is unwilling to lose its grip on the former Soviet state. While the EU is holding a carrot, Russia is certainly wielding a few sticks.
Earlier this year the Kremlin restricted imports of Ukrainian steel and other products, and banned imports on Ukrainian chocolates, citing quality concerns – although following Yanukovych’s announcement that he was holding off on signing an agreement with the EU, the ban was lifted. All of this costs Ukraine money that it can ill afford to lose – and perhaps more pressingly, Russia is Ukraine’s main supplier of gas; in 2006 the Kremlin cut off the country’s supply and could always do it again. Russian President Vladimir Putin insists that Ukraine is free to make its own choice between East and West, and that his Customs Union will not interfere with the domestic politics of Ukraine as the pact with the EU would; his trade threats and mounting pressure say otherwise.
The protests in Ukraine show where the aspirations of the public really lie. In the biggest gathering in the country since the Orange Revolution in 2004, in which President Yanukovych was overthrown in favour of a pro-Western party because of vote rigging, 100,000 Ukrainians demonstrated in Kiev against the president’s decision to freeze negotiations with the EU. The Orange Revolution happened around this time nine years ago, although the antihero of the story was a domestic politician and the cause a fight against corruption and a lack of transparency in the political sphere – now the protest seems to be a fight for the freedom to determine their own route. Ukraine became independent over 20 years ago; the protestors today are heavily made up of students who have been born into an independent Ukraine and perhaps identify more with Europe. For them, the shadow of the Soviet era is fading and closer integration with Europe is the most natural and beneficial choice.