Ukraine’s Parliament failed yesterday to agree on a draft law allowing jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to go to Germany for medical treatment, clouding prospects for signing landmark agreements with the EU this month.
Germany warned that with the Vilnius summit only two weeks away, time was running out for Kiev to settle the case of Tymoshenko. Summit host Lithuania said there would be no success unless Ukraine produced “results”.
Accords on association and free trade, due to be signed at a summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on November 28, offer the former Soviet republic the chance of a historic shift westwards, and away from Russia.
But the EU has made an end to “selective justice” a pre-requisite for the signing, and success at Vilnius hinges on whether President Viktor Yanukovich releases ex-prime minister Tymoshenko, his fiercest opponent.
She was jailed in 2011 for seven years for abuse of office after a trial which the EU says was political.
The proceedings will be watched closely by Moscow which is opposed to Ukraine signing the agreement and has threatened counter-measures. The Kremlin wants Kiev to enter an alternative Moscow-backed customs union.
Though he has refused to pardon Tymoshenko, Yanukovich has said he is ready to break the impasse by signing a draft law to allow her to go to Germany to be treated for chronic back pain.
We hope that enough goodwill will emerge to be able to reach a consensus- EU envoy
At a special session yesterday, pro-Yanukovich deputies and Tymoshenko’s supporters in Parliament failed to agree on any such draft and blamed each other for seeking to undermine agreement in Vilnius.
Two EU envoys, Irish politician Pat Cox and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who have been on a shuttle mission from Brussels to Kiev to find a compromise, attended the special Parliament session.
Their findings will feed into a pre-summit meeting of EU foreign ministers on November 18 when Kiev’s record in meeting key democratic criteria – including the freeing of Tymoshenko – will be assessed.
The envoys did not appear to have a good story to tell, though Kwasniewski expressed the hope that Ukraine’s Parliament would be finally able to agree on terms for Tymoshenko’s release on November 19 when it meets again.
“We know that politically this is very complicated. But we hope that enough goodwill will emerge to be able to reach a consensus,” he told journalists.