The Ukrainian Civil Society statement says “ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN UKRAINE AND THE EU TO BE INITIALED”.
Today this message will be delivered to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Statement from Civil Society in Ukraine to EU and Ukraine’s government
16.11.2011, 11:33
Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council
Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission
Jerzy Buzek, President of the European Parliament
Catherine Ashton, High Representative to the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Radoslaw Sikorski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland
Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine
Volodymyr Lytvyn, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine
Mykola Azarov, Prime Minister of Ukraine
Cc: Pawel Kowal, Member of the European Parliament
Cc: Pawel Zalewski, Member of the European Parliament
ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT BETWEEN UKRAINE AND THE EU
TO BE INITIALED
Statement from Civil Society in Ukraine to EU and Ukraine’s government
Ukraine’s civil society organizations, the community of independent experts on European integration, and community networks, including the Ukrainian National Platform of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership, welcome the conclusion of negotiations over the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU last week and call on Ukraine’s government and the European Union to put every possible effort into initialing the Agreement by the end of this year. Postponing the initialing of this Agreement beyond 2011 will have dangerous consequences for relations between Ukraine and the EU and Ukraine’s Eurointegration, and most importantly will deprive ordinary Ukrainians of any sense of real European prospects. Such prospects provide extremely important leverage for the country’s voters to withstand incursions on their basic rights and freedoms, and on democratic processes within Ukraine.
We appeal to the Government of Ukraine, especially President Viktor Yanukovych, to
– recognize and stand by the commitments that Ukraine voluntarily took on in opening negotiations and signing the Association Agenda with the EU. These commitments include EU requirements to ensure rule of law and an independent judiciary, to set up the necessary conditions for an opposition to function properly, and to provide both legislative and administrative support for holding free and fair elections in Ukraine. These steps would demonstrate real political will in Ukraine’s government to uphold European values in practice and would, we are certain, improve the stance of those political forces in the EU that are now insisting on not signing the Agreement under the current circumstances;
– stop insisting on unrealistic conditions, especially formal prospects for membership on the part of the EU, in the text of this Agreement, since this document by its nature is already a detailed outline of Ukraine’s European prospects.
We also appeal to the European Union to:
– initial the Agreement by the end of 2011 and not block the process for political reasons, even if there are problems with democratization in Ukraine;
– affirm in the Preamble to the Agreement that Ukraine is a recognized European country with a European identity, which has been done in earlier bilateral documents;
– present a transparent list of conditions to the Government of Ukraine as a sine qua non for the signed Agreement to take effect. As representatives of civil society, we guarantee that this list will be disseminated to the voting public in Ukraine;
– clearly state that the official signing and ratification of the Agreement will only be possible after Ukraine meets the list of conditions;
– demonstrate support for the desire of Ukrainian society by initialing this Agreement, as Ukrainians need this chance to modernize their country along European lines.
We would like to emphasize that initialing the Agreement and publicizing its text will be a major tool in the hands of Ukraine’s civil society in generating public demand for reform and influencing the government to undertake the necessary changes.
Once again, we underscore the urgency of the demands of Ukraine’s civil society that were expressed in statements issued by leading pro-European platforms on October 20 and September 12, 2011.
Therefore, we appeal to the President of Ukraine, as the Guarantor of the Constitution, to the Government and the Verkhovna Rada, as well as to the European Union, with the demand that the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU be initialed.
Signed:
Oleksandr Sushko, Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation
Oleh Rybachuk, CentreUA CSO
Iryna Sushko, Civic Initiative "Europe without Barriers"
Yevhen Bystrytskiy, International Renaissance Foundation
Ihor Kohut, Laboratory for Legislative Initiatives, Chairman of the National Platform of Civil Society Forum Eastern Partnership
Yulia Tyshchenko, Ukrainian Independent Center for Policy Studies
Andriy Skipalskiy, Zyttia [Life] Advocacy Center
Oleh Zhyvotovskiy, European Choice CSO
Volodymyr Gorbach, Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, EuroAtlantica.info
and other representative of civil society.
