The discrepancy is resolved or at least mitigated by negotiating action plans, the main instruments of the ENP, which the EU prepares for each neighboring country. Both practical measures and discursive practices were taken into account when formulating policy recommendations. It explores the background of EU-Ukraine relations, in particular the ambiguous policy of Ukraine towards the EU under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma and the similarly ambiguous policy of the EU towards Ukraine.
It highlights the negative aspects of EU enlargement and examines the extent to which the European Neighborhood Policy could help solve many problems. The Ukrainian government's dissatisfaction with the ENP was reflected in the delay in finalizing the main instrument of the ENP, the EU-Ukraine Action Plan. For now, the most sensible approach is to make the best use of the existing ENP instruments, while at the same time looking for opportunities to advance relations with the EU beyond the ENP.
The truth is, of course, that we [the British Foreign Office] have a certain amount of information about famine conditions in the south of Russia [sic] similar to what has appeared in the press. 7 Quoted in 'New Neighborhood - New Union: Ukraine and the European Union at the Beginning of the 21st Century', Policy Papers 6 (Warsaw: Stefan Batory Foundation, March 2002), p.
New Neighbourhood: the ‘ring of friends’ or a ‘buffer zone’?
Consequences of EU enlargement
This means that for the time being, Ukrainians have to cope with the negative consequences of EU enlargement and benefit from some of its positive aspects by using the available and rather limited instruments and provisions of the ENP. The disadvantages of enlargement are most tangible in the border regions and primarily affect the new member states and the new neighbors of the EU. The new visa requirements actually hurt petit traders on both sides of the border, complicating business and professional contacts, cultural and academic exchanges, tourism, cooperation between NGOs, strikes against family ties and so on.
Ethnic minorities, separated from their nations by visa regime, are also major victims of the new policy of exclusion: Hungarians, Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians in Ukraine and, possibly, Ukrainians in Poland, Slovakia and Romania. For 'Westerners' it is a dramatic betrayal of their best hopes and ideals, a kind of 'God is dead'. Of course, the many negative consequences of the 2004 EU enlargement for Ukraine were predicted long ago by experts: 'In the foreign policy sphere, the accession of neighboring countries to the EU and the related dynamization of their development will even more the difference in transformation rates between these countries and Ukraine, which will objectively complicate bilateral relations'.20 This has not yet happened with Poland, but Ukraine's experience with Slovakia, the Czech Republic and, to some extent, Hungary, confirms rather than refutes the prediction that the position of Europe -oriented forces in these countries will strengthen after accession, and they will consider cooperation with Ukraine, along with wider regional cooperation in the East, as secondary compared to the Western vector of their foreign policy.
The benefits of the expansion may be no less weighty, but so far they are much less tangible. Most of the benefits appear as opportunities to be skipped and developed and as such require vision, purposefulness and generally reciprocity on the part of the partners. As a neighbor of the enlarged EU, Ukraine has a good opportunity to intensify its economic relations with the Union and eventually join the European Free Trade Area; to develop various transport projects (among them the Odesa-Brody-Gdansk pipeline), to strengthen regional and cross-border cooperation within Euroregions (Buh, Upper Prut, Lower Danube, Carpathian), and of course to get the strongest support for reforms in the field of justice and internal affairs (RIA).
And last but not least, Ukraine gains the advantage of exposure, as never before, to the pull of the 'European magnet' – with its high standards of democracy, rule of law, business and labor, rights of man, and so on. There is no doubt that Ukraine's and the EU's priorities regarding the new neighborhood differ significantly, and that the broader Europe initiative worked out in Brussels much better reflects the interests of the stronger partner – much to the dismay of the weakest. But the silver lining of the EU's ambiguity is that its policies usually veer between minimalist and maximalist concepts.
The Commission document [on wider Europe] is itself at the minimalist end of the spectrum.”22 Therefore, it is up to Ukraine to broaden the spectrum and make full use of its “maximalist end”.
The Wider Europe initiative: trumps and traps
As long as there is a great difference in the quality of life on the two sides of the border, there will always be enormous pressure from the 'Rus' to penetrate the 'West'. The European Neighborhood Policy reasonably tries to combine both approaches, but pays more attention to the symptoms of the disease (cross-border crime and other 'soft threats') than to its causes (political, cultural and economic exclusion of the neighboring countries) . a) European Neighborhood Policy. The European Neighborhood Policy outlines a large number of measures that, if implemented coherently and with proper incentives, could meet the maximalist requirements of the EU and Ukraine.
Borys Tarasiuk, the new Ukrainian foreign minister, was the leader of the opposition when he first expressed his disappointment with the ENP: 'We do not understand why the EU is putting Ukraine together with Russia and Belarus, which do not express a desire to become EU members. We do not understand why Ukraine is placed in the group of the so-called EU neighbors together with the North African countries and the countries of the Middle East. If the EU develops such policies towards Ukraine, it becomes clear that we are not perceived as a country that is part of the European continent.
But to prove or disprove these claims requires a closer look at the practical, essential part of the ENP, which is the subject of the action plans. The Communication on a Wider Europe of March 2003 envisaged action plans as "key policy instruments in the EU for relations with neighboring countries in the medium term". In June 2003, the EU Council approved the most important guidelines for drawing up action plans within the framework of the Wider Europe concept.
The limited effectiveness of the action plans was determined, on the one hand, by the EU's essential indifference towards a remote and little-known country, which contributed only a meager 1% to the total volume of EU foreign trade. However, Ukrainian representatives complain that they still have very limited ability to influence the content of the document, that the incentives remain very vague and that the provisions of the document are much more binding on Ukraine than on the EU. Attention will be paid to the possibility of a new comprehensive agreement, the scope of which will be determined in the light of the achievement of the objectives of this action plan and of the overall development of EU-Ukraine relations.
But morally and psychologically, Ukrainians can be proud of the dubious compromise.
Towards the free movement of persons: challenges and responses
- Real and imaginary threats
- Neighbours’ experience
- Options for the Ukrainian government
- Visa policy
- Border management
- Clamping down on illegal migration and transborder crime
- Public relations
- Options for the EU
- Technical and legal assistance
- Visa facilitation
- Limited access to labour market
In the context of EU enlargement and the European Neighborhood Policy, a constructive dialogue on visa facilitation will be established between the EU and Ukraine with a view to preparing for future negotiations on the Visa Facilitation Agreement, taking into account the need to advance the ongoing negotiations for the EC-Ukraine Readmission Agreement . Of primary importance was the signing of bilateral readmission agreements with each of the EU member states. Unfortunately for Ukraine," the experts sarcastically conclude, "this way, every country striving for EU membership will be judged by higher standards than those to which the last new member state had to adhere".56
Establishing a constructive dialogue on visa facilitation between the EU and Ukraine, with a view to preparing for future negotiations on a visa facilitation agreement, taking into account the need for progress on the ongoing negotiations for an EC-Ukraine readmission agreement. They also aim to promote, in the medium to long term, the free movement of people between the EU and Ukraine, within the framework of Ukraine's declared aspiration for EU membership. Many policy solutions can and should be asymmetric, and reciprocity from the EU may not come quickly, if ever.
61 The new Ukrainian government seems to be strongly committed to solving the problem in close cooperation with the EU. The EU sees illegal migration and cross-border crime as the main threats emanating from Ukraine. Therefore, it is in Ukraine's vital interest to cooperate fully with the EU in solving these problems. a) Illegal migration: stick and carrot.
Second, the EU and Ukraine should draw up an agreement on mutual protection of the labor markets. Second, the Ukrainian government needs to convince the EU that strong reforms are underway in Ukraine that are producing tangible results, and that old anti-Ukrainian views and biases deeply rooted in the West should be reconsidered. The EU's general approach should be based on a clear understanding that Brussels, not Kiev, has a vested interest in securing its new border to the east, and that's why.
This decision naturally requires a series of preliminary steps by both the EU and Ukraine. The EU should set clear criteria, the fulfillment of which would lead to the lifting of the visa requirement for Ukrainian citizens. Non-governmental organizations in the EU and Ukraine would play an important role in implementing information campaigns to advertise the legal possibilities for labor migration to EU member states – as well as the potential dangers lurking for illegal migrants.
Conclusions
