BERLIN — In a joint appearance in Berlin with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Ukraine “to stay on the path of reforms.”
Speaking to the 3rd German-Ukrainian Business Forum, Merkel said that “it’s important to keep fighting corruption, to implement the anti-corruption court, and to protect civic activists,” Merkel said. She said that activists may not always be “pleasant partners” for the government, “but they should not fear for their health,” she said.
Since the EuroMaidan Revolution, which drove Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych into Russian exile, civic activists have frequently faced harassment, physical violence, and sometimes even murder for their efforts to fight corruption.
The issue took on broad public resonance, both in Ukraine and abroad, after the death of Kateryna Gandziuk on Nov. 4. Three months earlier, Gandziuk was attacked with acid, likely for her work to expose corruption in her native city of Kherson.
Merkel also praised Ukraine’s work to implement demands of the International Monetary Fund, or IMF, in return for billions of dollars in low-interest loans.
She called the IMF conditions, which included raising gas prices for domestic consumers to market levels, “very strict.”
“You can imagine how hard it was to raise gas prices before presidential and parliamentary elections in a country that is not rich,” she said. Merkel thanked Prime Minister Groysman and Finance Minister Oksana Markarova for enduring the criticism and implementing the price hikes. “We understand that was very painful,” she said.
The chancellor also reiterated Germany’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“I want to underline this for those who forget,” Merkel said. “On the basis of a referendum, Ukraine made the decision to declare independence. It agreed to give up the nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory” under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. That document – which Russia, Great Britain, the United States, Belarus, and Kazakhstan also signed – gave assurances of security and territorial integrity to Ukraine.
“We are obligated to follow our agreements,” Merkel said.
The chancellor also reiterated the logic of Europe’s sanctions on Moscow. “We didn’t impose sanctions for the sake of imposing sanctions,” Merkel said. “We did it to show that a country – even one close to Russia – has a right to its own path.”
