Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych will follow up his China visit with a visit to Malta next week as thousands of his countrymen continue to protest his decision to re-enter the sphere of Russian influence.
The protests began when Ukraine announced that it was abandoning its pro-west stance, in terms of a trade association agreement paving the way for possible and eventual EU-entry, and instead turning to Russia.
The announcement was met with mass protests in the streets and has seen the number of people who are joining the ranks swell every day – even though force is being used to try and disperse them. There are other issues which have rankled the Ukrainian people, including the continued detention of former PM Yulia Tymoschenko (which has also angered the EU) as well as the attempts to try and exclude (please excuse the pun) heavyweight candidate for the 2015 elections – boxer Vitali Klitschko – from contesting. He has since become opposition leader and the incumbent government is trying to exclude him by saying that he has spent too long living in Germany. He is an MP.
The Ukrainian president is currently in China and will arrive in Malta next Monday. The whole of Europe (and the rest of the Western world) is urging Yanukovych to change his ways, and so should the government of Malta. The visit should go ahead, but it should go ahead with the frame of mind of telling the Ukrainian government to respect democracy, its people and the rule of law.
The government cannot simply cancel the visit. Diplomacy is at stake, and no doubt, the EU will have been in touch with the Government of Malta to exchange ideas of what message should be put to the Ukraine. The EU has already made it clear that the government of Ukraine should listen to its people, but it has also left on the table the draft for the agreement which it had prepared to sign with the Ukraine. One of the reasons is that the EU’s economy is still very sluggish in recovery and the addition of a new free trade partner would boost income. The other is that the EU would prefer its sphere of influence to grow and that of the Russian Federation to diminish.
It seems that the Ukrainian Government still has an opportunity to turn things around, but at this point, it seems highly unlikely that it will happen. Once the police and army turned violent, it seems that a red line has now been crossed.
The government of Malta, as we have already said, should put forward the message that Ukraine’s place is in Europe, among nearly 30 nations that have engaged in the unique experiment in democracy which is the European Union.
The Nationalist Party has also issued a statement and said that it will not be attending any formal events in the visit, but it will set up a meeting with President Yanukovych to convey the PN’s solidarity with the Ukrainian people and to tell the Ukranian government that what it is doing is wrong. We agree. But while the PN has said that it will not attend official events, it must also make sure that it sticks to its word and that the PN leader should only meet with President Yanukovych to express its disappointment at the current goings on. One cannot have his cake and eat it too.