EU welcomes Ukrainian coalition deal

External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has welcomed a coalition agreement reached between pro-European political parties in Ukraine. The two parties said they had enough votes to back Yulia Tymoshenko as the next prime minister.

A coalition agreement was reached shortly after the final results of the parliamentary elections were published on 15 October 2007. The “orange” block of Yulia Tymoshenko and President Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence Party will have a slim majority in the newly-elected parliament.

“This will enable the country to break the vicious circle of crises and conflicts in government and open up a new path for future progress. The renewed parliament and future government should unite around national priorities and preserve the nation’s unity,” President Yushchenko said in a statement on 15 October.    

The EU’s hopes are high that the new coalition led by Orange Revolution icon Yulia Tymoshenko will help the country overcome its political crisis, which was sparked by the rivalry of pro-Western President Yushchenko and the pro-Russian Prime Minister Yanukovich.

“The future government has important challenges ahead as Ukraine continues down the path of constitutional, political, and economic reform. The European Commission stands side-by-side with Ukraine as it continues along this path of reform,” External Relations Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner stated on 16 October.

This week the EU engaged in a further round of talks with Ukraine on a new “enhanced agreement”, which would include a free-trade area and increased energy co-operation, as well as Ukraine’s WTO accession. 

However, Tymoshenko was also eager to assuage fears that the new coalition could repeat its fall-out after her last election as prime minister following the 2004 Orange Revolution. She said: “We have drawn conclusions about what happened in previous years. We firmly know what to do, we firmly know how to do it and with which team.”

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