EU Fails in Bid to Bring Ukraine Closer to West
The European Union suffered a setback in its bid to draw ex-Soviet states into the Western fold when jewel-in-the-crown Ukraine refused to sign a landmark political and trade deal years in the making.
Ukraine's snub despite massive pro-EU protests on its streets highlighted a worsening EU-Russia tug-of-war over former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe.
"The Ukrainian president is not ready to go further into integration with the European Union," Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite told reporters on the second and final day of a difficult summit between EU leaders and six ex-Soviet states that has highlighted East-West tensions.
"I think that today's Ukrainian leadership (is) choosing the way which is going nowhere," the Lithuanian president said.
The two-day talks held in the Lithuanian capital on the EU's eastern flank was to have celebrated a five-year drive to cement ties between the 28-nation bloc and Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
But blaming economic pressure from Moscow, Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych days before the summit scrapped plans to sign off on a deal with the EU that was to have been the event's crowning moment.
The EU "door will always remain open for Ukrainians should they wish it," said French President Francois Hollande.
Georgia and Moldova meanwhile initialed political and trade agreements that will still need to be officially signed to come into effect, hopefully within the next year.
European Union president Herman Van Rompuy meanwhile hailed the two countries; "determination, courage and political will" amid worries they too like Ukraine will come under Russian pressure to eventually pull back from the EU deals.
"Russia has already begun to increase pressure on these states as well," said global think-tank Stratfor.
At talks on the first day of the summit Yanukovych requested extra EU funds to help the nation's struggling economy and demanded three-way talks between the EU, Russia and Ukraine on trade.
The EU however has repeatedly refused to even consider trilateral talks on trade, with one senior EU official saying this week "it would be like inviting China to the table at talks to agree an EU-US free trade deal".
Kiev's surprise decision to scrap the landmark accord with the EU has unleashed a war of words between East and West recalling Cold War days and sparked some of the biggest protests seen in Ukraine in a decade.
As pro-EU Ukrainians took to the streets demanding Yanukovych side with the West and turn away from traditional master Moscow, even his arch-foe, jailed former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, said she would rather stay behind bars than see the country go East.
Tymoshenko's daughter Eugenia had told AFP that if Yanukovych "fails to sign the agreement... we cannot predict how people will react".
Keen to show Moscow's former communist satellites in Eastern Europe that the summit matters, almost all EU leaders were attending the two-day talks, including the "Big Three" of Britain, France and Germany.
The accent is on the future, they argue, rather than the past.
"We should overcome the mentality 'either us or them.' The Cold War is over," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, admonishing Russian President Vladimir Putin to look at the wider picture.
"It is our task in the future to talk even more with Russia about how we can overcome a situation where it is either being tied closer to Russia or being tied closer to the EU," Merkel added on Friday.
The EU's Eastern Partnership project aims to strike trade and aid deals on its eastern periphery and counter Russian influence, but vast Ukraine, with its 45 million people, industry and farms, was the major prize.
To make matters worse, Brussels has seen Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus turn back towards a Moscow which has reminded all of how much they stand to lose if they make what it sees as the wrong choice.
Yanukovych insists the EU offered insufficient compensation to offset what Ukraine might lose in economic ties with Russia.
Brussels says that after months of arm-twisting by Moscow, Ukraine's exports to Russia dropped 25 percent, in some industries by 40 percent. Ukraine is also heavily dependent on Russia's natural gas.
The EU has come under stiff criticism for its handling of negotiations with Yanukovych, whom critics have accused as having played both sides in his own interest of winning elections in 2015.
Source: Agence France Presse
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