Radek Sikorski: Ukraine should not feel aggrieved if a decision not to accept it into NATO’s Membership Action Plan is made at the Bucharest Summit

The Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski has visited Kyiv for the first time since the government of Donald Tusk came to power in November, amid the crisis situation that emerged on Poland’s border with Ukraine as a result of ongoing Polish customs guards work slowdown. The issue of bringing operations by Ukraine’s and Poland’s customs and border security services back to normal, for all its significance, was only one among a host of problems that came under discussion during Sikorski’s Kyiv tour. These included agreements on cross-border traffic, coordination of the UEFA 2012 European championship preparations, cooperation on energy-related issues and more questions crucial for the future of Ukrainian-Polish relations. For the time being, as seen from Mr. Sikorski’s interview for Mirror Weekly, Poland, as before, remains committed to strategic partnership with Ukraine.

Mirror Weekly: Mr. Foreign Minister, the situation on the Polish border, based on the most recent news, is step by step returning back to normal, as half of Polish customs officers have already shown up for work. But the strike still may restart on any day. How long do you think this uncertainty may continue, as vehicle lines remain stretched for many kilometers from the border, ordinary people are suffering and cargo forwarders and travel agencies are sustaining great losses?

R.Sikorski: As of this day (the interview took place on Tuesday – author’s note) the situation is slowly getting back to normal. If things would depend on us alone, the checkpoint operations would have long since resumed. Sadly to say, this is not the case, and for this reason, negotiations have to be continued with the customs officers on strike. I do hope that during the negotiations they will behave like intelligent people.

As I am not a fortune-teller, I cannot foresee where this situation will bring us. Our Prime Minister spent the whole day yesterday (on Monday – author’s note) on the border, speaking to customs guards. Mr. Tusk agreed that some of their demands are satisfiable, but others need to be addressed legislatively. I don’t know how much time this would take in Ukraine, but in Poland this issue would take a few months’ time to resolve. How soon this crisis may be settled will also much depend on the level of customs officers’ trust in our Government.

Mirror Weekly: What is the Polish Government going to do to make sure that such crises not recur in the future?

R.Sikorski: The situation is not as simple as meets the eye, as reasons for the strike are rooted deeply in the past. Now we are thinking about how the customs officers’ work could be encouraged financially. The possibility that the Customs Service will be transferred to the status of a law enforcement agency has not been ruled out. If so, the law itself would prevent such situations from recurring.

Mirror Weekly: What about setting up joint customs/border checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish border? This would make border-crossing procedures much easier and time-saving, as well…

R.Sikorski: I negotiated this issue during my visit to Ukraine. The matter stands thus: For one thing, an established procedure is there, as Ukraine is yet to sign the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data. Secondly, we need a common stance on that issue to be generated by various directorates of the European Commission. We’ve reached an understanding with our Ukrainian partners to the effect that a mixed Polish-Ukrainian team would go to Brussels soon for negotiations with EU officials. We would like to have answers to questions as to whether joint checkpoints of this kind are possible in principle, and, if so, on which terms such checkpoints could be set up. If the answer is ‘yes,’ we will start on work to organize joint border and customs processing operations on the Ukrainian-Polish border.

Mirror Weekly: Did the agenda for your Ukrainian visit include negotiations on a transborder traffic agreement that would govern border crossing procedures for residents of near-border districts?

R.Sikorski: This is one of the priority issues which I began to address as Foreign Minister, and it is currently being negotiated in Warsaw. I do hope that an appropriate agreement will be ready to be signed very soon.

Mirror Weekly: Does the draft agreement make provisions for free entry to Poland for residents of border districts?

R.Sikorski: Yes, indeed. Residents of border areas with appropriate residence registration marks in their passports will be allowed visa-free entry. In other words, this is about the abolition of visa requirements for these people. In this context, there is one aspect of significance which I would like to highlight: Any cross-border area has its frontiers, and the people who are detained while crossing the frontiers without appropriate visas will no longer be able to travel to countries from the Schengen borderless travel zone, as they will be denied entry visas.

Mirror Weekly: How far will the frontiers of the border area stretch?

R.Sikorski: This issue is being negotiated now. The Polish party proposes that this border area include entire integrated districts, so as not to divide districts or towns and to facilitate work for cross-border authorities.

Mirror Weekly: Nine months have passed now since UEFA President Michel Platini announced that Ukraine and Poland had been chosen as joint-hosts of the UEFA Euro 2012 final round. Analysts believe that this time has been lost for Ukraine. Will Warsaw consider co-hosting the Euro 2012 final round with a partner other than Ukraine in case the latter fails to meet the preparation deadlines?

R.Sikorski: No.

Mirror Weekly: Ukrainian analysts estimate that Poland has got from the European Union dozens of billions of euros in investments in Euro 2012 preparation programs, while Ukraine has got nothing at all. Why? Is Warsaw prepared to give Kyiv the money to finance preparation programs for the Euro 2012 Championship?

R.Sikorski: As far as we are aware, the money is coming in Euro 2012 programs from national investors, not the European Union’s. And the 90 billion euros we are going to collect during the seven-year period is not specifically designed for Euro 2012. The money will be coming from two European financial institutions: the Equalization Fund and the Agriculture Support Fund, and it will have nothing to do with preparations for the European football championship. Indeed, part of the sum will be channeled into improvement and expansion programs for the infrastructure to be used during the tournament, particularly the railway and highway systems. I want to reiterate that these investments would come to Poland anyway, even if Euro 2012 weren’t going to be there.

For Poland the question is: will football ground construction projects need to be funded from the national or local budgets, and will the projects be completed in due time, considering that the allowed time-limits are fairly tight? It is our hope that a large portion of the investments will return to us in revenues from the tourist industry expansion. Generally speaking, we are investing in ourselves.

Mirror Weekly: As far as is known, Warsaw is consistently supporting Kyiv on its way to European integration, and it advocates accepting Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan (MAP). The other day, President Yushchenko, Prime Minister Tymoshenko and Parliament Speaker Yantsenyuk sent a letter to the NATO Secretary General asking for Ukraine to be accepted into the MAP at the April Bucharest summit. What are the chances of Ukraine being accepted into the MAP at the Bucharest summit, as Kyiv hopes?

R.Sikorski: We welcome this decision by Ukraine, because we believe that the European and Euro-Atlantic integration prospects are a matter of course for your country. And we are urging our fellow members to support this Ukrainian bid. But NATO’s decision will not depend on Poland alone, as the North Atlantic Alliance is a hyper-democratic organization where decisions are to be approved unanimously, not by a majority vote.

What a shame that a letter to the NATO Secretary General requesting for a MAP admission for Ukraine wasn’t there two years away, when the memories still lingered of the orange revolution, and much of Europe’s sympathies were with Ukraine. That’s the time when iron should have been struck! But, you see, accession to NATO is a long-running process which is not infrequently complicated with doubts and uncertainty. Now the lost time should be made up for. It is my belief that Ukraine’s chances of having its MAP admission bid satisfied at Bucharest are growing. But I would urge you not to feel aggrieved if a favorable decision is not made at the Bucharest summit. One way or another, the work on accomplishing NATO standards will be of benefit for Ukraine.

Mirror Weekly: One of the first steps made by the new Polish administration was policy revision vis-à-vis Russia. Some analysts are speaking of Poland taking a more bottom-line approach, while others interpret Warsaw’s actions as flirtation with Russia. Given Warsaw’s new policy, to which extent may the Polish-Russian relations policy revision reach? What political price are you ready to pay for Russian natural gas supplies?

R.Sikorski: We are paying as much as we are paying now. We have contracts – both short-term and long-term. We in Poland have projects to diversify energy supply sources and pipeline routes. Some of the projects involve Norway, while others involve Ukraine. We are going to build up a liquefied-gas convertor terminal which would link us to international markets.

As far as relations with Russia are concerned, they used to be like a multilayer glacier. We believe that neighbors cannot be chosen, and therefore we need to conduct a dialogue with them on topics of all kinds, no matter how sensitive or complicated these may be. We and Russia have many issues to be settled. This is detrimental to our citizens in the first place, and for this reason we will conduct a dialogue based on a bottom-line approach. But this is by no means to say that we are going to forget our strategic partners or friends. It is also true that we, as before, will have our own opinion about what is going on in Russia.

Mirror Weekly: Will the new Polish government continue its policy of protecting energy security of Central and Eastern Europe which was launched by the government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski at the Krakow and Vilnius summits? Is Poland going to delegate its representatives for the Kyiv energy summit in May?

R.Sikorski: Poland will be represented at the Kyiv summit at the top level.

Mirror Weekly: Two Ukrainian oil refining companies sent a letter of request to the government for oil flow via the Odessa-Brody pipeline to be re-oriented to Europe. Is the Polish government prepared to expedite the pipeline extension towards Plock? This project was much talked about by the previous government, but without any visible progress…

R.Sikorski: If this is about the political aspect, we are fully supportive of this project. But the economic aspect is there, too, and there has to be someone to benefit from this.

Mirror Weekly: When is Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk going to come to Ukraine? Will the visit take place within the framework of his planned Russian tour?

R.Sikorski: Our Prime Minister’s visit may take place as soon as this February. The exact date is currently being negotiated. I don’t think that there should be too much buzzing about the dates, as top leaders have very busy work schedules which are difficult to coordinate. But my presence here speaks volumes for Poland’s readiness to maintain the Polish-Ukrainian strategic partnership.