UWC Acknowledges Positive Step on Ukraine’s Path to Euro Integration

On 10 April 2013, Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) President Eugene Czolij issued a letter to President Viktor Yanukovych in which he acknowledged that the decree, in response to the appeals of the international community, including the UWC, releasing former Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and former Environmental Protection Minister Heorhiy Filipchuk was a positive step on the path to signing the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.

Reiterating previous appeals, particularly in our letter dated 12 February 2013, the UWC President called, once again, upon President Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine’s governing authorities to fulfill the following criteria as outlined in the Resolution of the European Parliament on the situation in Ukraine from 13 December 2012, namely to:

4. [...] carry out and implement the necessary reforms, in particular that of the legal and judicial system, with the aim of fully adhering to the principles of democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, minority rights and the rule of law;

13. [...] end the selective application of justice in Ukraine at all levels of government and to make it possible for opposition parties to participate in political life on the basis of a level playing field; [...] in this context, to free and rehabilitate politically persecuted opponents, including Yulia Tymoshenko [...] and others.

On 10 April 2013, the UWC President also issued a letter to high-ranking EU officials calling for appropriate measures to ensure that Russia complies with the 1994 Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (signed by the UK, the US, Ukraine and Russia) and stops using Russian gas as a political weapon in order to pull Ukraine into the Customs and Eurasian Unions and create a new Soviet Union.

“This serious threat to “re-Sovietise the region” can be averted with the signing of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement during the Third Summit of the Eastern Partnership on 28-29 November 2013 in Vilnius,” emphasized Eugene Czolij.