Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s official adviser on international affairs has close links to the regime of deposed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. Dutchman Robert Van de Water is an adviser to former Ukrainian prime minister Mykola Azarov, who resigned in January as protests sparked by the decision not to sign a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU continued to grow.
Mr Van de Water still lists himself as an adviser to Mr Azarov on his LinkedIn profile.
On February 2, anti-Yanukovych protesters demonstrated outside the house of Mr Azarov, who had fled to Austria.
In a meeting with Mr Yanukovych in September, Mr Van de Water was one of four people photographed in the Maltese delegation. The others were Dr Muscat, Foreign Minister George Vella and Parliamentary Secretary for Competitiveness Edward Zammit Lewis.
According to the government’s head of communications, Mr Van de Water’s advice to the ex-Ukrainian prime minister “was strictly limited to the realisation of the reforms requested by the European Union for the signing of the EU/Ukraine Association Agreement. Mr Van de Water ended his appointment as adviser to the Ukrainian government on November 29, 2013, after Ukraine failed to sign the agreement.”
Mr Van de Water does not receive remuneration for his services, although the Office of the Prime Minister reimburses “travel, accommodation and subsistence” expenses.
In January, a Ukrainian man living in the US e-mailed the Maltese government imploring it to reconsider its business relationship with the adviser, saying: “In the past, Mr Van de Water was a vocal supporter of Leonid Kuchma, then the president of Ukraine, whose authoritarian rule ended in 2004 in massive protests that became known as the Orange Revolution.”
Mr Van de Water is married to Ina Kirsch, who heads the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. This Brussels-based organisation is described in the international media as being sympathetic to Mr Yanukovych and his political party, the Party of Regions.
According to the Daily Beast, he was the only speaker who was positive about the Yanukovych government at a symposium on Ukraine’s role in the US Congress organised by the US-Ukraine Foundation in December.
The Sunday Times of Malta was unable to contact Mr Van de Water and questions sent to his wife went unanswered.