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Ukraine fails to pass bills freeing Yulia Tymoshenko Ukraine fails to pass bills freeing Yulia Tymoshenko before EU summit
(about 1 hour later)
Ukraine's parliament has failed to pass bills that would have enabled the release of the jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, dealing a blow to the ex-Soviet republic's chances of integration with the European Union. President Viktor Yanukovich of Ukraine delivered an almighty snub to Europe on Thursday when his parliamentary supporters ditched legislation aimed at partly integrating the country with the EU.
European leaders consider Tymoshenko's seven-year sentence for abuse of office politically motivated and have said they will refuse to sign a landmark association agreement with Kiev at a summit next week unless she is freed. A week before a crucial EU summit in Lithuania which will be dominated by the Brussels-Moscow tug of war over Ukraine's future, parliament in Kiev failed to pass any of six new laws seen as necessary for a breakthrough in Vilnius on Friday next week.
Despite this threat, members of President Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions did not vote in favour of even one of the six bills meant to allow Tymoshenko's release on Thursday morning. Two top EU envoys who have been lobbying for a solution for months were present at the vote. The bills would have cleared the way for the departure to Germany for medical treatment of Yanukovich's archrival Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister who was jailed in 2011 for seven years.
Opposition MPs responded with chants of "Shame!" and urged Yanukovych to pardon Tymoshenko through a presidential decree. Yanukovich's Party of the Regions did not vote on any of the six bills, condemning them to failure, amid calls of shame, scandal, and treason from the pro-European opposition, which is planning a big demonstration in Kiev this weekend in favour of Ukraine's "European option".
"It is President Viktor Yanukovych who is personally blocking Ukraine's movement towards the European Union," the opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk told parliament in an emotional speech after the vote failed. Yanukovich's brinkmanship came as a humiliation for Stefan Fuele, the EU commissioner for enlargement, who went to Kiev for talks with the president ahead of the vote.
Theoretically, Yanukovych has until the summit begins on 28 November to secure Tymoshenko's release either by pardoning her or by ensuring parliament passes the necessary law next week. "I am encouraged to see the determination of the president in cooperation with all parliamentary factions to adopt key legislation on 21 November," said Fuele ahead of the fiasco in parliament.
According to reports in Kiev, Yanukovich told Fuele that he was not prepared to sign the pact with the EU in Vilnius, potentially setting back by years the country's prospects of quicker integration with the EU.
At stake is a trade agreement and a political association deal stemming from 2005 when the EU launched its eastern neighbourhood policy, which offered trade and political benefits to post-Soviet states traditionally falling within Moscow's orbit. The policy falls short of offering eventual membership of the EU or negotiations to join. Moldova and Georgia are expected to sign agreements with the EU in Vilnius. Armenia, under strong Russian pressure, has already dropped its European ambitions in favour of joining the Kremlin's Eurasian customs bloc.
Of the four countries, Ukraine is the main prize because of its size, geography and history. A failure next week will represent a foreign policy debacle for the EU. President Vladimir Putin, who appears to view the contest for Ukraine as a zero-sum game between Russia and the west, has been tightening Russia's trade screws on Ukraine and the other countries, and the Moscow media are issuing daily warnings of the bleak future facing Ukraine should it risk a westward leap.
The main terms for a breakthrough concern what the EU calls an end to "selective justice" in Ukraine, meaning that the courts and the judiciary are manipulated for political and business reasons. The touchstone for these criteria is the fate of Tymoshenko, with Germany insisting she be allowed to leave the country, while others such as France and Poland argue that the prospects for such a geo-strategic shift in Russia's backyard should not be tied to the fate of a single individual.
Diplomats and officials in Brussels, while dismayed by the serial negative signals from Yanukovich in recent weeks, remained nonetheless hopeful that the president was bluffing, seeking to extract better terms from the EU, and would yet yield at the last minute in Vilnius and issue a presidential pardon for Tymoshenko.
"The future of EU-Ukraine relations remains very unclear," said Hannes Swoboda, leader of the social democrats in the European parliament. "The parliamentary decision raises profound doubts about how serious Ukraine's commitment to the EU really is. We deplore the pressure and blackmailing tactics that Russia has used against Ukraine and other countries. It is equally deplorable that Ukraine seems to have given in to this pressure."
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