UKRAINE : From past to future, the Choice of Europe ?

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What is the current reality of Ukraine, 10 monthes after the "Orange Revolution" ? Its eyes, which seem to be fixed on the European Union, should not hide its links to Russia, for the best and for the worst. Facing this young independent nation balanced between west and east, what kind of perspectives Europe could offer to this country ? A policy paper in English to download (PDF).

DOWLOAD THE POLICY PAPER (pdf)

Abstract

After Orange revolution, Ukraine definitively seems to have been anchored in a European destiny. However, Russia, due to its imperial past assimilated the Ukrainian people into its nation-state building process. If it is not easily contestable that Ukraine has a European identity and that its vocation is to enter the Union, the way should be long and full of obstacles : Russia does not hope to give up what it estimates to be a part of its identity, and the European Union does not manage to give to the Ukrainians a prospect to the height for their European hopes.

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

1. THE UKRAINIAN IDENTITY : A PART OF EUROPE APART OF EUROPE, A PART OF RUSSIA APART OF RUSSIA

LITTLE RUSSIA AND GREAT RUSSIA : THE PATH DEPENDENCE OF INTERMINGLED NATION-STATES BUILDING

A NATION OF EUROPE

2. FROM INDEPENDENCE TO INDEPENDENCE : THE EUROPEAN CHOICE

KEY ELEMENTS OF A STRATEGIC POSITION

EAST-WEST BALANCES

NATO AND THE USA

THE SINUOUS WAY TOWARDS EUROPEAN UNION

CONCLUSION : ONE DAY, MAYBE

REFERENCES

INTRODUCTION

“Orange Revolution”. In December 2004, almost all the Medias and the world political leaders didn’t hesitate to call “revolution” the political troubles and the victory of Yushenko’s partisans in Ukraine. After Georgia, and on a - alleged - comparable stream as Moldova and Kirghizstan, Ukraine seemed to turn the back to Russian hold and to look to the west, especially towards Europe.

From the recent events and the new political context of Ukraine, which had, as a quasi instantaneous effect, substituted a former representation – an austere country under Russian domination still marked by communism, land of Chernobyl catastrophe - to an other one in common minds – marked by the image of modern and democratic new “orange” leaders turned to western values, active civil society -, we will try to ask the recent past and the fundaments of this undefined or at least multifarious nation. Tensed between Russia and now a 25 members European Union, to whom belongs Ukraine ? Could the orange revolution give expectations on the launch of a new destiny where Russia’s domination is the past of Ukraine and European Union circle its future ?

We will try to present briefly in the following statements the meaning of the political will of the Ukrainian leaders after Orange revolution to be part of the European union, in regard with Russia’s secular relations. We will especially maintain, from a personal analysis, that if the Ukrainian nation is essentially European, its nation-state building process is strongly linked to the Russian one, and thus apart of Europe.

The aim of this article is nor to pretend to an exhaustive historical perspective neither to produce a precise political analysis. More simply, our purpose is to illustrate how the political achievement of the European integration process needs now to deal with the complexity of the contemporary Russian and Ukrainian nations building inheritances, especially after the later enlargement to central and eastern European countries in 2004. And finally if Ukraine made the European Union choice, what is the choice of European Union ?