EU fails to get Tymoshenko out of jail as Ukraine shun off EU deal
Kiev: The issue of releasing former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko who is in jail in corruption charges has caused a defeat and embarrassment for European Union when Ukrainian Parliament refused to pass bill for Yulia’s release on Thursday.
EU officials thought they would get the Yulia out of jail in a deal to prize Ukraine with smooth sail to European Union. However EU is facing sheer embarrassment as Ukrainian government has decided to balance Russian and European interests by proposing a three-way commission to regulate trade among Moscow, Brussels and Kiev instead of accepting EU demands that are considered in Kiev as “direct intervention in the domestic affairs of Ukraine”.
We have not joined EU but EU is behaving as a “master in classroom” telling us what to do and what not to do. Once we will join EU then there is possibility EU will force us how much vodka we should drink in one month, said a student of Kiev University when was asked to comment by Dispatch news desk (DND).
The cabinet of ministers issued a decree ordering the government “to suspend” preparations for concluding the agreements with Europe. The cabinet said that it was acting in the interests of national security and that instead of planning to sign the agreements it would prepare for negotiations with the European Union and Russia.
Linas Linkevicius, the foreign minister of Lithuania, the host for next week’s summit meeting in Vilnius, said Ukraine had long been sending “mixed messages” so it was hard to know whether it has really reached a final decision to back away from Europe.
“I am not very optimistic, I will not deny it. But it is not the end of the game,” said Mr. Linkevicius, whose country currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.
He added that if Ukraine passes up the chance of signing a deal at next week’s Vilnius summit it will have very little chance of doing so in future. “The probability is likely close to zero,” he said.
Without Ukraine, “the entire idea of the Eastern Partnership seems to go down the drain,” said Steven Blockmans, the head of foreign policy research at the Centre for European Policy Studies, a Brussels policy research group.
