Gleichschaltung. Authoritarian Consolidation in Ukraine 2010-2012 by Mykola Riabchuk

Author:Mykola Riabchuk [Riabchuk, Mykola]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Regional Studies, History, Modern, 21st Century, Europe, Russia & the Former Soviet Union, Political Science, Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Propaganda, World, Russian & Former Soviet Union
ISBN: 9786176840015
Google: nni3CwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: KIS Publishing
Published: 2012-01-15T09:36:05+00:00

12. 2011

Under Western Eyes

Ironically, the annual EU-Ukraine summit held in Kyiv on December 19 overshadowed all other political events in Ukraine over the past few weeks, even though its actual results were close to zero. Moreover, the meager results had been rather predictable since the Ukrainian government had not indicated any intention to ease its multifaceted pressure on civil society, nor had the EU looked ready to condone Kyiv’s increasingly authoritarian behavior.

Yet, the drama under the title “Ukraine–EU Association Agreement” had been played for so long and by so many actors, that most of the viewers could not merely give it up. Some expected a miracle, but many more simply watched the ship sinking, taking down with it sheaves of toughly negotiated documents.

Still, the Ukrainian crew looked surprisingly cheerful and the foreign guests apparently unworried. Unlike the viewers, all the participants of the performance had got what they wished. Ukraine’s friends like Poland or Sweden left the door open, i.e., the Agreement negotiations pending, albeit at the lowest speed possible and with the slimmest chance of being completed in any form in the foreseeable future. Ukraine’s opponents, like France and Germany, got a plausible excuse not to initial the Agreement they had not wanted to sign anyway. And the Ukrainian president got one more opportunity for publicity photographs with the EU Big Bosses, displayed eventually ad nauseam on all the loyalist TV channels and newspapers. Now, he can continue his “European” rhetoric with even greater confidence.

Very few people believe in this rhetoric but this is of little importance. The main goal of president’s talks is not to bring Ukraine closer to the EU, but rather to prevent his own and his cronies’ expulsion from this prestigious club. Most of them, on a personal level, integrated into the EU long ago, with their families, businesses, bank accounts, and all the daily habits like shopping, holidaying, or health and relaxation. They may dupe Moscow, Brussels, and their own electorate with ideas of a Russian-led Customs Union, Single Economic Space, or Eurasian integration. This is for fools’ consumption—for lokhi, as they say. But for the real men, the krutye patsany, as they define themselves, there is a much better place called “Europe.” And they have already joined it—with no action plans and association agreements, merely with some stolen assets, laundered money, and diplomatic passports that allow them, unlike common Ukrainian lokhi, to enter the Schengen fortress without visas.

Lokhi, i.e. Ukrainian society, seems to be the only loser in this whimsical game between the Ukrainian government and EU bureaucracy. Half-measures and general incoherence badly hamper EU policies everywhere, not only in Ukraine. On the one hand, the EU was right to postpone the initialing of the Agreement for some technical reasons, and to condition its signing and eventual ratification with clear demands for restoration of democratic practices in Ukraine. On the other hand, this reasonable decision was not buttressed by a set of additional sticks and carrots. EU politicians seem to believe that the Association Agreement per se is a sufficient bonus for the Ukrainian leaders to strive toward.

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