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After the Orange Revolution newly elected President Yushchenko triumphantly visited Brussels, Strasbourg, London and Washington. Indeed, in his first year in office Yushchenko seemed to be abroad more often than at home. Eventually the British newspaper The Independent felt moved to compare Yushchenko to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, as both enjoyed greater popularity abroad than at home.

As Yushchenko’s domestic popularity has waned, support for his dynamic sidekick has mushroomed. Between 2002-2007 Ukraine has held three parliamentary elections during which time Tymoshenko has progressively eclipsed Yushchenko.

Riding the reformist wave

During this five-year period Ukraine’s voters have become increasingly impatient with the moderate Yushchenko and have switched their allegiances to the more radical Tymoshenko. Here moderate and radical translate into conservative status quo policies versus those in favour of political and economic reforms.

In the 2002 elections Our Ukraine came first with 24% of the vote and the Tymoshenko bloc (BYUT) trailed far behind with only 7%. Four years later this was reversed with Our Ukraine falling by 10% to 14% and BYUT increasing its vote to 23%. A year later, in pre-term elections BYuT increased its vote again to 31%, only 3% less than the Party of Regions, while Our Ukraine remained stuck at 14%. BYUT also managed to gain votes in eastern and southern Ukraine, regions into which Our Ukraine never has been able to make headway.

These trends are very likely to continue. Current Ukrainian opinion polls show that Prime Minister Tymoshenko is regarded as the leader of the Orange camp and the one Ukrainian politician that has the political will to implement the promises of the Orange Revolution.

At this stage Yushchenko’s falling ratings would never recover if he openly opposed Tymoshenko.

Reaping a harvest of hope

When asked if she plans to run in the 2009 presidential elections, Tymoshenko has repeatedly said that she does not intend to, as long as the current President supports her reforms. The question was posed to her again in the European Parliament last week and her response elicited wide applause, demonstrating both the continued popular support in Brussels for a western-leaning Ukraine and residual sympathy for the reform movement kick-started by the Orange Revolution. It is no coincidence that her return to government has coincided with renewed signals of hope from Brussels.

Body language can tell you a lot about what people are thinking, as readers will have noticed watching Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton in the recent US debates. Their body language shows that there is little love lost between the two Democratic party candidates. Take a look at the body language between Tymoshenko and EU and NATO officials last month and you can see mutual warmth and respect.

Of course, Yushchenko experienced similar body language in the first half of 2005 because he was the poisoned hero of the Orange Revolution, but those days are now long gone. Yushchenko not only has failed to deliver on promises made to Ukrainians during the revolution but also let down the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, whom Yushchenko told in February 2005 that fully resolving the murder of journalist Georgi Gongadze was a matter of personal honour. Exactly three years later, Yushchenko has not yet fulfilled his word.

Actions speak louder than words

The Tymoshenko government appears determined to be judged by its actions rather than hyperbole and it will take Ukraine into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) this week. This kind of decisiveness has long been missing from Ukrainian politics, and has made the country an extremely difficult partner to build relations with. The Party of Regions has always been lukewarm about the WTO. While in opposition in 2005-2006 the party repeatedly voted against legislation demanded by the WTO. In government the Party of Regions claimed it supported WTO membership, yet only more evidence of its multi-vector approach to foreign policy ever made itself apparent.

Cleaning up the energy sector

Ukraine’s membership in the WTO will come ahead of Russia’s, which will give Kyiv a strategic bargaining chip vis-a-vis its northern neighbour. This could have implications for Ukraine’s energy relationship with Russia, a relationship that has always been difficult and corrupt.

Tymoshenko has stated her intention to raise what she says are the insufficient tariffs paid by Russia for the transit of its gas across Ukraine to the EU. She has also stated her intention to build energy relations with Russia on a bilateral basis without the participation of shadowy intermediaries such as Rosukrenergo.

President Yushchenko has long stated his opposition to increasing tariffs and to changing the current gas supply scheme. This is not surprising as both were negotiated by the Our Ukraine government under Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov in January 2006. Both BYUT and the Party of Regions voted no to the 2006 Yekhanurov government’s gas deal with Russia but when in office Yanukovych maintained Rosukrenergo in place, another example, together with the WTO and NATO, of the Party of Regions’ multi-vectorism when in office or in opposition.

Although President Yushchenko thwarted a January visit by Tymoshenko to Moscow the tide is clearly moving in her direction. The US and EU have long called for the removal of Rosukrenergo and greater transparency in the energy sector. During Tymoshenko’s Brussels visit she was given full support by the EU for shifting gas relations with Russia to a more transparent level.

Nor was the case for keeping the murky intermediaries in place helped by last month’s arrest in Moscow of an organised crime boss wanted by the FBI, Semyon Mogilevich. This notorious figure has been long accused of being at the centre of Rosukrenergo and its predecessor, Eural-Trans Gas, both created by the Russian and Ukrainian governments in 2004 and 2002 respectively.

Economic ties that bind

Following Ukraine’s WTO accession, the EU and Ukraine are to negotiate a Free Trade accord that will have major strategic implications for Ukraine and the whole region.

Crucially, this agreement will end Ukraine’s long-standing multi-vector balancing act between the CIS and Europe. A Free Trade deal with the EU effectively buries Ukraine’s convoluted involvement since 2003 in the CIS Single Economic Space. Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will be left to consider whether they wish to pursue this Moscow-dominated free trade zone without the crucial Ukrainian market.

Targeting EU double standards

A new Free Trade agreement will assist Ukraine in meeting a large portion of the so-called 1993 Copenhagen Criteria that countries aspiring to join the EU need to fulfil. In response to these developments, in the next 12 months the Tymoshenko government intends to negotiate a new agreement with the EU to replace the ten year-old Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed by President Leonid Kravchuk in 1994. President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Tymoshenko have both argued that any new “Privileged Partnership” between Ukraine and the EU should open the door for Ukraine’s future EU membership.

Only three regions remain outside “Europe” that still wish to join “Europe” (i.e. the EU). Two of these – Turkey and the Western Balkans – have been given some option of future membership in the EU while a third – Ukraine – has not. Of the nine countries in these three regions only three – Ukraine, Croatia and Serbia – are defined as “free” by the well known US-based NGO Freedom House. Yushchenko and Tymoshenko should stress the unacceptability of the EU’s continued double standards that are applied to Ukraine, especially in view of the European Parliament’s repeated support for Ukraine’s EU membership aspirations.

Soviet phantoms and NATO

In contrast to Tymoshenko’s bold stance on WTO membership and EU ties, the issue of NATO membership remains less clear. Last month a joint letter signed by Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and Parliamentary Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk was sent to NATO requesting they consider Ukraine for a Membership Action Plan at the alliance’s April summit in Bucharest. Tymoshenko’s visit to Brussels in support of a Ukrainian Membership Action Plan overturns that of Prime Minister Yanukovych who on a visit to Brussels in September 2006 told NATO that Ukraine was not ready for a Membership Action Plan.

Ukraine is already quite far down the road in terms of readiness for NATO integration and a Membership Action Plan is feasible technically in two months’ time. Since 1994 Ukraine has been the most active CIS country in NATO’s Partnership For Peace programme. In 2002 former president Leonid Kuchma and then-prime minister Viktor Yanukovych outlined Ukraine’s intention to seek NATO membership and a year later a majority of parliament (including the Party of Regions) voted for a law on national security that declared Ukraine’s intention to join both NATO and the EU.

It was also under Yanukovych in 2003 that Ukraine began to fulfil yearly Action Plans with NATO that are little different from a Membership Action Plan. As the Tymoshenko government has therefore pointed out, Yanukovych and the Party of Regions are displaying double standards and inconsistencies in their attitudes towards NATO.

Courting Kremlin condemnation

Russia, unlike Ukraine, never supported NATO enlargement and has repeatedly stated its opposition to Ukraine and Georgia joining the organisation. However, Russia’s ability to block Ukraine’s path to NATO is overstated and declining. The use of energy supplies as a weapon against Ukraine will become impossible when Ukraine eventually joins NATO in five or more years time, as by then Ukraine will be paying EU prices for gas (this year’s price of USD 179.95 per 1,000 cubic metres is already more than 300% higher than that paid in the last year of Kuchma’s term in 2004).

Euro integration back on track

The first year of the new Tymoshenko government will therefore bring noticeable progress in strengthening Ukraine’s foreign policy away from the constantly fluctuating multi-vectorism of the Kuchma era to that of fully-fledged integration into the West. WTO membership this week will be followed by two advances this year in Ukraine’s relations with the EU, a Free Trade agreement and Privileged Partnership, as well as a Membership Action Plan with NATO.