CR Promises To Help Ukraine Join EU, NATO

PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- The Czech Republic supports Ukraine’s ambitions to integrate into European structures, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg said after a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Borys Tarasyuk on Jan. 15 in Prague.

Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel Schwarzenberg
The two ministers signed a joint declaration that their countries should cooperate in areas of foreign policy, agriculture and nuclear safety. “EU and NATO entry are Ukraine’s foreign political aims,” Tarasyuk said at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Tarasyuk said that Ukraine had a law that firmly set achieving these priorities as a legal obligation. However, although chief political forces in the country have agreed on those obligations, there’s still a question as to how they will be fulfilled, he added.

“Before 2004, the aim was [hindered] by the EU’s internal policy. This was the reason why Ukraine was stagnating on the aim of entering the EU,” he said. In the past two years, Ukraine started to cooperate more with the EU on foreign political projects, which is a major shift, Tarasyuk said.

Later on Jan. 15, Tarasyuk met Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek (Civic Democrat, ODS), but the Government Office hasn’t released information about the meeting.

Tarasyuk said that this year Ukraine could sign an agreement with the EU that would simplify the visa terms between Ukraine and EU countries. “There’s also the hope that the EU will sign an agreement with Ukraine through which it will become a candidate country,” Tarasyuk said. However, there’s no consensus on the issue in the EU.

Schwarzenberg said that the Czech Republic would relate Czech experiences with EU and mediate NATO accession talks to Ukraine. “Of course we will talk to other EU countries as well in order to speed up the process,” Schwarzenberg said at a press conference, adding that Ukraine is one of the priority countries of Czech foreign policy.

“I’m happy that the first international agreement I’ve signed [as foreign minister] is with Ukraine,” Schwarzenberg said. He added that a new Czech general consulate in Donetsk, Ukraine, will open soon and the two countries’ mutual economic relations have favorably developed. “Bilateral trade turnover rose by 30 percent last year, compared to 2005,” Schwarzenberg said.

Another issue that the Czech Republic will discuss with Ukraine is oil and natural gas. “The supplies, which were long considered a matter of course, still raise certain question marks,” he said, alluding to the recent oil supply outage over a dispute between Belarus and Russia, the supplier (see “Oil cutoff pumped concern, but not crisis,” CBW, Jan. 15, 2007).

Tarasyuk, a pro-western politician and head of the right-wing People’s Movement of Ukraine doesn’t get on very well with Moscow. He’s one of the leading advocates of Ukraine’s entry into NATO and of the weakening of the Kremlin’s influence on Ukraine.

His stand sharply contrasts with that of Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who wants closer relations with Russia.

While the joint declaration with Ukraine was the first one Schwarzenberg signed, the meeting with the Ukrainian official wasn’t his first official act. Schwarzenberg visited Slovakia Jan. 13 and met with Slovak Minister of Foreign Affairs Ján Kubiš to confirm good bilateral relations.

Source: Czech Business