You're reading: No illusions for Ukraine at Eastern Partnership summit, experts say

A week before Eastern Partnership summit in Latvia, European Union leaders remain critical of Ukraine’s slow progress.

The Eastern Partnership summit on May 21-22 in
Riga will gather representatives from Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Belarus and
Ukraine.

The EU made it clear that, despite Ukraine’s
steps foward in fulfilling the action plan on visa liberalization, the country
still has to catch up with Georgia and Moldova. Ukraine’s leaders were hoping
that Ukrainians will be able to travel visa-free to the 26 nations that make up
the Schengen zone within Europe from January 1, 2016.

But the country’s hopes for visa-free travel
to Europe will not be realized in Riga this month.

Speaking at the Ukraine-EU conference
organized by Kyiv-based Institute of World Policy on May 12, EU Ambassador Jan Tombinski
said that Ukraine still is not doing enough to meet EU requirements for
visa-free travel.

“For example, Ukrainian computers should be
connected to European databases to monitor those people who may be dangerous,
and we need to make it clear that there is no threat that anyone can buy or
sell passports,” Tombinski stressed.

In February, Ukraine’s President Petro
Poroshenko said that “the main expectation from the Riga summit is a positive
political decision of the EU, opening opportunities to us for the practical and
technical introduction of visa-free regulations for Ukrainian citizens as early
as by the end of this year.”

While Tombinski said that’s not likely to
happen, the visa-free regime between Ukraine and the EU is still on the agenda.

Improving human trafficking legislation and
data protection are also high on a list of demands.

In its annual visa report published on May 8,
the EU Commission also said Ukraine should improve its anti-discrimination laws
and combat organized crime.

The most critical issue is anti-corruption.

“The progress made so far on anti-corruption
policies was notably at legislative level and on some preparatory steps for a
new institutional setting,” according to the report. “The anti-corruption
benchmark is deemed to be only partially achieved.”

In the meantime, Ukraine expects to get three
main signals from the EU at the upcoming Eastern Partnership Summit, Pavlo
Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, says on May 12.

Klimkin is certain that Ukraine should get the
confirmation of its European integration perspectives and hopes that EU will
assist in the implementation of EU Association Agreement.

Iryna Herashchenko, the lawmaker for Petro
Poroshenko bloc and the presidential representative on the humanitarian
situation in the east, says that the EU needs to take into account what
Ukrainian government has done.

Herashchenko cited progress in
decentralization and the law on Anti-Corruption Bureau among the biggest
achievements.

But experts remain less optimistic about the
country’s perspectives during the summit.

Oleksandr Sushko, an analyst for the Institute
for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, a Kyiv-based think tank, warns that Ukraine shouldn’t
“cherish illusions.”

Sushko said that “Ukraine won’t be praised at
Eastern Partnership Summit. The country’s leaders should not expect that civil
victory can be converted into success on the European stage.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at
[email protected].