No deal ‘so far’ with Ukraine at EU-Russia tug-of-war summit

European Union leaders failed to convince Ukraine to sign a landmark political and trade deal on the first day of an EU summit Thursday designed to draw six ex-Soviet states into the Western fold.

Lithuania’s President Dalia Grybauskaite told AFP that at talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanuokovych, EU “arguments did not reach Ukraine president’s ear and mind. So far we see that positions have not changed.”

The Ukrainian leader is to meet both German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande before the two-day summit winds up on Friday.

The talks held symbolically in the Lithuanian capital on the EU’s eastern flank was to have celebrated a five-year drive to cement ties between the 28-nation bloc and six former Soviet states in eastern Europe and the Caucasus — Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

But under mounting economic pressure from Moscow, Yanukovych a week before the gathering suspended negotiations to sign an Association Agreement and a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU.

The decision has sparked the biggest protests seen in Ukraine in a decade and a sharp East-West verbal tussle reminiscent of the Cold War era.

Grybauskaite said the EU’s dozen newer member states from central and eastern Europe had tried but failed to convince Yanukovych that they had made vital political and economic progress after striking similar deals with the bloc.

In the case of such deals, the EU provides grants and aid to help countries step up to the political and economic standards of the 500-million bloc, the world’s largest market.

As pro-EU Ukrainians took to the streets demanding Yanukovych side with the West and turn away from Moscow, even his arch-foe, jailed former premier Yulia Tymoshenko, said she would rather stay behind bars than see the country go East.

EU nations for their part had partly conditioned the deal to her being allowed to go abroad for medical treatment.

Her daughter Euguenia told AFP that if Yanukovych “fails to sign the agreement tomorrow, we cannot predict how people will react.”

Only Moldova, Georgia ready to sign

Keen to show Moscow’s former communist satellites in Eastern Europe that the summit matters, almost all EU leaders were attending the two-day talks, including the “Big Three” of Britain, France and Germany.

The accent is on the future, they argue, rather than the past.

“We should overcome the mentality ‘either us or them.’ The Cold War is over,” Merkel said, admonishing Russian President Vladimir Putin to look at the wider picture.

The Eastern Partnership summit also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus, aiming to strike trade and aid deals with the EU but vast Ukraine, with its 45 million people, industry and farms, is the major prize.

To make matters worse, Brussels has also seen Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus turn back towards Moscow which has reminded all of how much they stand to lose if they make the wrong choice.

Only Moldova and Georgia — which fought a 2008 war with Russia — are now ready to initial agreements with the EU but Moscow could well apply pressure on them too before the deals are formally signed in around a year.

“Russia has already begun to increase pressure on these states as well,” said global think-tank Stratfor.

Yanukovych insists the EU offered insufficient compensation to offset what Ukraine might lose in economic ties with Russia.

Brussels says that after months of arm-twisting by Moscow, Ukraine’s exports to Russia dropped 25 percent, in some industries by 40 percent. Ukraine is also heavily dependent on Russia’s natural gas.

The EU has come under stiff criticism for its handling of negotiations with Yanukovych, seen as having played both sides in his own interest of winning elections in 2015.

The six ex-Soviet states too were disappointed not to be clearly offered EU membership at the end of the line, a politically sensitive issue in many European states where far-right xenophobic parties are on the rise.

But others say the East-West row over Ukraine has shown the real face of Russian diplomacy.

“The Ukraine case will make many governments in the region and elsewhere think twice about their dealings with Moscow,” said Carnegie Europe director Jan Techau.