British Ambassador Turner: “The things that have been happening here in the last months cannot be said to be the actions of a democratic country”      

A career diplomat, Mr Turner has been working in Ukraine since summer 2008. The Ambassador's familiarity with Ukrainian politics makes his assessments and analytical prognosis particularly interesting. Lb asked for Mr Turner's predictions about Ukraine's future relations with “Old World” countries. At the time of the interview, it was apparent that there would be no miracles on 19 December; the Association Agreement would not be signed. But life goes on, and the parties will have to build relationships within the context of their new realities.     

Lb: It is obvious that the Association Agreement will not have any real consequences for Ukraine until it is signed and ratified. When do you think this could happen?

Leigh Turner: The signing can only happened six months after the negotiations are finished, and signature will be a political decision. It will only happened if European Union countries are confident that Ukraine is behaving in a democratic way and seriously wants to join the European Union.  At the moment, I have to say, many of them are not convinced at all.

LB: But does it depend only on the political situation or on something else as well? Is political will necessary for the initialing?

Leigh Turner: the key point is that the European Union is a rules-based organization. You don’t join the EU just because the EU wants to be nice to you. You join the EU, because the EU thinks your country is ready to join and qualifies to join.

It’s a bit like a man joining a sports club.  The members of the sports club might say  - are you fit, are you prepared to give up smoking, are you prepared to stop drinking so much vodka? Are you prepared to lose a little bit of weight?  And the person joining the sports club replies: actually, I can’t stop smoking, I want go on drinking, can we negotiate about that? The sports club says, no you can’t negotiate about giving up drinking and smoking, you have to stop. The sports club members have to be convinced that the new member is serious about the qualifications for joining the club.

With the European Union, when you sign the agreements they are legally binding and it’s important that you are serious about it and you demonstrate that you are serious. At the moment, the fact that opposition leaders are being put in jail as a result of flawed or politically-motivated trials, does not convince many people in European Union that Ukraine is serious about joining the European Union.

Lb: According to you, how much has Ukraine advanced on the European integration path over the past two years, in comparison with other political periods?

Leigh Turner: Well, I think the picture is quite mixed. If we look at objective indices, there are some which are okay.  For example, there is a little bit of economic growth in Ukraine which could be higher, but it’s not too bad; there is a little bit of macroeconomic stabilization – that’s helpful.

But if we look at the bigger picture, there are some indices which are not so good, for example, the World Bank Ease of Doing Business shows Ukraine at a number 152 out of 183 which is falling 7 places from the previous report; the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2011 puts Ukraine at 152 out of 172 countries, that is down by 18 places.

The Kyiv-based European Business Association has an Investors’ Confidence Index which has fallen sharply in the last quarter.

We have the Freedom House index moving Ukraine from ‘free’ to ‘partly free’; and then we have the Reporters without Borders organization concerned about press freedoms deteriorating in Ukraine.

We have to be careful how do we interpret all of that, with some of these indices you can talk about whether they are significant or not, but taken together they are discouraging. Now, there are observers of the situation in Ukraine in Europe who say two different things: some of them say that obviously Ukraine is not serious about joining the European Union; they are just playing with us.

LB: For a long time?

Leigh Turner: Right, for a long time. That is what one group of people say. Another group says that it believes that Ukraine really wants to join Europe and we must do what we can to help them. The United Kingdom belongs to the second group.  It is important to understand that integration with the EU brings lots of mechanisms which reform all areas of a society and an economy – everything from improving your press freedoms to improving your standards, I talked about this at a press-conference yesterday, to improving green house gas emissions, to schooling, everything.

LB: The UK had a rude reaction on Yulia Tymoshenko’s verdict of November, 11. In particular, the Head of the Foreign Office, William Hague, expressed an opinion that this situation might become a serious obstacle to the European integration of Ukraine. Such signals are important not only for Ukrainian politicians, but for the civil society as well, do you agree?

Leigh Turner:  First, you say a rude reaction that, perhaps,not a quite right word in English; we would say a strong reaction. We were very polite and we chose our words very carefully. But certainly Mr Hague made clear that the flawed trials of opposition leaders and their incarceration and their inability to take part in political activities constituted a major obstacle to European integration for Ukraine, and it would stay a major obstacle for as long as people were in prison on the basis of those flawed trials. I’ve written about this many times in my blog. I do encourage people to read that blog because it sets up a lot of useful background on our position and on the position of the European Union.

As regards civil society, I think that Ukraine is a wonderful country and the Ukrainian people have enormous talent. And one of the expressions of that is civil society. One of the results of that is that the civil society is comparatively strong in Ukraine compared with many countries.

LB: With Russia or Belarus?

Leigh Turner:Compared with many countries of the former Soviet Union. I like the idea that civil society can become more engaged. I think that there are many opportunities to do this, working with Non-governmental organizations in the European Union, and indeed working with the European Union itself. For example, I’ve recently been to a few projects down in Odessa oblast’ where the EU is working with groups of women who are helping to reconstruct houses to improve energy efficiency. Because there are always questions if the European Union or other aid organization engage with the authorities that money might not end up in a right place. They are always very keen to engage with civil society and there lots of things that we can do together and I hope that will continue.

LB: According to the sociological data 77% of Ukrainians would like to join the EU, but at the same time 48 % of Ukrainians do not know what Europe is, as they do not have foreign passports.

Leigh Turner: I think most Ukrainian people understand pretty well what values Europe represents. They understand that it represents freedom, it represents democracy, and it represents the rights of individuals, compared with the state. These are all areas where Ukraine had a difficult history for hundreds of years, first as part of Russia and then as part of the Soviet Union. I think most people can aspire to that, even without knowing the details of how it works. We always say lots of people want to have ‘evropeyskyi remont’ in their flats - that is what it’s all about.

LB: One more question. Imprisoned opposition leaders appealed repeatedly to the European community not to link their personal fate with the fate of Ukraine. How it can influence our situation on the 19^th?

Leigh Turner:   I think opposition leaders who are in prison want to see European integration of Ukraine.

They can see that the EU integration is good for Ukraine, is the best option for Ukraine. Everybody wants it, and we want it too. But, as I said before, the European Union is a rules-based organization, and if you start breaking the rules, the organization doesn’t work well anymore.  

I gave a speech in April in which I said that although we were concerned about developments in democracy in Ukraine such as changes to the Constitution or local elections, these were not catastrophic problems for the relationship between Ukraine and EU and we could still proceed with the Association Agreement. The situation has changed: putting leaders of opposition parties in prison with no genuine legal basis goes way beyond any red lines which the European Union could possibly accept.

LB: The EU is important for our economy. As we know, most of the agreements, which will be presented on the 19^th, are trade and economic cooperation rules. Perhaps, there is no necessity to sign other association documents?  

Leigh Turner: No. Let’s be clear, that is completely wrong. There are two major agreements on the table, one is the Association Agreement, the other is the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA). The DCFTA has the power to transform the Ukrainian economy over a period of years. It will be difficult to begin with, but in a long run, it offers a change for Ukraine from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to being a country that is more like an EU country. But the DCFTA will not enter into force until the Association Agreement is agreed.  So there is no way that Ukraine will benefit from DCFTA,  whatever happens next week, unless, the Association Agreement is signed and ratified.

LB: What is more necessary for Ukraine – economic cooperation with the EU or European values?

Leigh Turner: You can’t start having the kind of deep integration into Europe which the DCFTA means, and unless Ukraine is a democratic country. The things that have been happening here, especially, in the last four or five months, cannot be said to be the actions of a democratic country.

LB: Are Western countries really concerned that Ukraine might become too close with Russia if it temporarily abandons the European path?

Leigh Turner: I always say we should not see this as a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is where if a country doesn’t move in one direction it must move into different direction; or what is good for country X, must be bad for country Y.  This is old-fashioned thinking, I might say Soviet thinking.  We must look at this as a win-win situation. That means if Ukraine becomes wealthy and stable, that is good for the European Union, and it is also good for Russia. It is not an alternative, that Ukraine has to go one way or another.  Having said this, I’ve seen no suggestion that Ukraine is thinking about joining the Customs Union, or that Ukrainian leaders want Ukraine to be in the same situation as Belarus is now in relation to Russia. So, I think the risk is not that Ukraine will turn away from the European Union towards Russia, I think the risk is more that if the efforts of Ukraine and the European Union in to bring about European integration for Ukraine are unsuccessful, Ukraine will be stranded  between the EU and the former Soviet Union.

LB: Given the country’s bad economic situation, it looks as if economic cooperation with Russia might be in Ukraine’s interest. Perhaps our government relies on this assumption?

Leigh Turner: I think this is a question for Ukraine, what kind of country it wants to be. Clearly, there are options for Ukraine to make deals with other countries which might be beneficial in one area or another; they might help a few Ukrainian companies, they might help a few Ukrainian individuals to make more money. But whether they are good for Ukraine in a long run is a big question. Ukraine now needs to think about it very carefully. It is like a question of cheap gas or gas at market prices. It seems to me that although it may seem attractive to get cheap gas from somewhere that brings with it a lot of problems as well as solutions. 

If we look at the history of countries around the European Union, such as Poland which has now joined or Turkey which has not yet joined, we can see that those which have successfully integrated with the EU have seen strong economic growth. Compare the sizes of the economies of Poland or Turkey with Ukraine, we can see that those countries have much bigger and  much more successful economies than Ukraine; even though Ukraine in theory has much better resources in terms of gas and energy production and fantastic agricultural potential. The reason is that Ukraine is not reforming fast enough and we have a solution for that which is called Europe.

LB: Yes, but this economic success will not happen in the first year after the integration.

Leigh Turner: When you start to integrate with Europe it’s a bit like the man joining the sports club, who finds that when he starts to go on the running machine and when he starts to lift weights he gets sore muscles and it’s difficult for him and it takes a while before he becomes fitter and he starts being able to run faster and to lift bigger weights. So, the beginning is always difficult: economic reforms are difficult in any country. But in the long run or in the medium term the results will be good.

LB: And what about British business here in Ukraine nowadays? Has the business climate improved in Ukraine over the last two years as our government claims or it has not?

Leigh Turner: In general I would say that business environment in Ukraine was very poor when I arrived in Ukraine in 2008, it continued to be very poor in 2009, it is very poor in 2010 and 2011.

Many of the indices which measure the business environment have got substantially worse in the last year.

I continue to get many British companies coming to me and saying that we have certain  problems with regulations or with the court system or with the tax system.  Part of the system is what is called corporate raiding which is a grave problem in Ukraine. And part of the problem is general corruption.

I always say to British companies that there are good opportunities in Ukraine if you have determination and good products. There is money to be made in Ukraine, come and try it. But if they ask me whether the business environment is getting better I cannot say it is.

LB: Last but not least, a philosophical question. European Union member-states have over 200 years of democracy, while Ukraine - only 20 years. Is it fair to impose the same requirements on a young state as on the established democracies?

Leigh Turner: It is true and important that Ukraine is a young country and a young democracy. We are looking for changes here in Ukraine in 20 years which took over 200 years in some other countries.  But that should not be used as an excuse for not introducing reforms. I often have a debate with Ukrainian business people or politicians whether it is possible to do anything about corruption quickly? Or will it take years?  And I always say if you have a strong lead from the top if you have top politicians who everybody believes are completely clean and there is no corruption – that sends an important signal through the whole system and you can make progress quickly.  As for economic reforms and moving towards Europe, it may not be easy, but it is possible. But if there any doubts that the leadership in the country really wants to bring about those deep reforms, and whether they are really motivated to bringing about progress towards European integration, then it may be that progress will be slow.

LB: Georgia is a good example. Short period - good results.

Leigh Turner: I am interested in the example of Georgia which in the Soviet era was not seen as a country with no corruption problems. But people who have been there recently tell me that the question of traffic police taking bribes has seen real progress in Georgia. I’ve been looking in Ukraine for the last three and a half years for signs that the authorities really addressing corruptions in a serious way, but  I can’t see those signs.