What is the current state of reforms and what drives and hinders progress?
A public panel discussion on Tuesday, September 22, 2015 at the DGAP addressed the pressing question of how Ukraine will translate the energy of the Maidan protests into lasting political, economic, and social reform. The event was held in cooperation with the Institute of World Policy in Kiev.
Alyona Getmanchuk, director of Kiev’s Institute of World Policy, introduced the panel and began by describing the two existential challenges Ukraine currently faces: the external task of responding to Russian aggression and the internal task of getting fundamental reforms underway. While Ukrainians were “good at revolution, would they be patient enough to implement reforms?”
Chairing the discussion, Stefan Meister, head of the program on Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia at the DGAP’s Robert Bosch Center, observed that Ukraine was currently at a crossroads in its post-Soviet history. Never before had such a reform-oriented government been in power; yet at the same time, oligarchs’ powers remained undiminished – clearly expressed in the fact that they are still not paying their fair share of taxes. In this context, it was not surprising that the protest potential of Ukrainian society is again growing.
“Corruption is deeply rooted in Ukrainian society”
When asked what the biggest achievements of the last ten months had been, Dmitry Shymkiv, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, pointed out the longevity of inherited structures. Too often, nepotism still influences politics in the country, with decisions being “less about principles than people.” Shymkiv said that the new administration constantly had to encounter the dynamic of “old interests” keeping “new ideas” from developing. One telling example: the fact that there has been a turnover of less than 1 percent among civil servants.
In addition to this – and despite progress in fields such as public administration reform – Russia is aggressively depicting Ukraine as a “failed state,” which further hinders the government’s reform efforts. This narrative, he said, is being accepted all too easily by Western media.
Shymkiv also stressed, however, how much had been achieved in a very short time and how ambitious the overall scope of the Ukrainian reform agenda was. Johannes Regenbrecht, head of the German foreign ministry’s working group on Ukraine, agreed on this point.
Regenbrecht argued that the relevant question was less what economic, social, and political model was right for Ukraine, since its wish to restructure itself as a pluralistic democracy ultimately heading for European Union membership seemed quite clear; rather, the question was one of “how to get there?”, that is to keep looking closely at the progress of reforms.
No Quick Fix
Regenbrecht referred to the upcoming Ukrainian elections on October 25 as “highly challenging,” warning that they “could weaken the moderate, reform-minded forces and strengthen populists such as [Yulia] Tymoshenko and [Oleh] Lyashko.” With regard to the current state of reforms, he said that in order to tackle corruption effectively, it was crucial to appoint a general prosecutor. He argued that decentralization remained another key pillar of reform. Referring to a new draft law to strengthen local self-governance that had already passed the first reading in the Ukrainian parliament, Regenbrecht recounted that the German foreign ministry was “deeply disappointed by the refusal of key coalition partners such as Tymoshenko to vote for the law” and that it hoped this reform would eventually go through.
Referring to foreign support of Ukraine’s reform efforts, Regenbrecht disagreed with a “whatever-it-takes” approach put forward by people like George Soros, saying that this would simply delay reforms, and that both “ownership” and “strict conditionality” were “of the essence.”
When asked why the EU could not simply offer Ukraine an EU membership perspective, Regenbrecht responded that implementing the EU-Ukraine Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) first represented “the right order of steps.” Shymkiv agreed that Ukraine should not apply for membership before it was not able to fulfill even one or two criteria of a catalogue of 35 to qualify for EU membership.
“Civil society is probably one of Ukraine’s strongest points”
Peter M. Wagner, deputy head of the European Commission’s support group for Ukraine, stressed how high the Ukraine ticket was on the EU’s agenda. “Hardly a week [goes by] without a commissioner in Kiev.” He said how impressed he had been with the engagement of Ukrainian civil society, for instance in the form of people taking leaves of absence in order to volunteer and support the new government and its efforts to overcome bureaucratic inertia. However, he, too, had observed a growing sense of unease in Ukrainian society in reaction to the slow implementation of reforms – a prevalent feeling that “more could be done.”
Most importantly, Wagner emphasized how crucial it is to tackle corruption: “If we are not getting something done on corruption, all the reforms that we are trying to put into place – tax administration, the health sector … – will not lead to results.”
Oksana Nechyporenko, representing the an initiative called Reanimation Package of Reforms, presented a more optimistic picture, saying that while there might not have been the necessary amount of change in the administration’s middle management, there certainly had been a shift in parliament, with 64 percent of MPs newly elected. Nechyporenko also presented polls that looked into Ukrainians’ perceptions of the current reforms. While many did not fully believe in their success, a majority of respondents said that nevertheless they “had hope.”
Speakers:
Dmitry Shymkiv
Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine
Johannes Regenbrecht
Head of the Working Group Ukraine,
German Foreign Office
Andriy Shevchenko
Reanimation Package of Reforms
Peter M. Wagner
Deputy Head of the Support Group for Ukraine
Dr. Stefan Meister chaired the discussion. The event was organized by the Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia and will be held in English.
