What awaits Ukraine in 2013

2012 turned out to be fruitful for Ukraine: we held Euro 2012, chose a parliament, and received a new Cabinet. The coming year will be no less interesting: Ukraine will become the chairman in the OSCE, plans to sign an agreement on the Association with the EU and, finally, determine the entry into the Customs Union. In 2013, Ukrainians will begin to issue biometric passports, and the country will be one more step closer to joining the EU.

The chairmanship of the OSCE

The main task of the OSCE is to protect human rights in European states. To imagine that Ukraine, who is accused of selective justice and the persecution of political prisoners, the state whose judges are thrown to the bars of innocent people, and the police torture the detainees will be the head of the organization, which most difficult to criticize it.

European politicians consider the chairmanship of Ukraine in the OSCE as an opportunity to check whether it really fulfills its obligations within the framework of this organization.

“In order for the country to be taken seriously as the chairman, it must react to criticism with response actions. Not only the reputation of Ukraine, but also the reputation of the OSCE itself, depends on this, ”said Christian StroGal recently, Deputy Chairman of the United Nations for Human Rights of Human Rights.

In other words, Ukraine hints that Lutsenko and Tymoshenko should be released into the wild.

Difficult choice between the Customs Union and the European Union

For several years now, Ukraine has continued to choose a foreign policy vector of development. 2013 will not be an exception. As you know, Russia gave Ukraine six months to make a decision to join the Customs Union (TS).

The main consumers of Ukrainian exports are located in the territories in one way or another in the vehicle. Without preferences provided to the member countries of this Union, it will be extremely difficult for Ukraine to trade with their yesterday's partners.

At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities well understand that having joined the vehicle, they will have to sacrifice part of the functions of the national state, transferring them to the supranational level. Today, only this is due to Ukrainian resistance to joining the vehicle.

The EU repeated many times to Ukraine about the impossibility of simultaneous membership in the EU and TS. Therefore, after joining the TS of euros, you can forget.

February 25, 2013 in Brussels will be a summit of Ukraine-Es. President Viktor Yanukovych and the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barrosa have already agreed on this.

The last Ukraine-ES summit took place in December 2011 in Kyiv. Then the EU leaders did not sign the association agreement due to problems with democracy in Ukraine.

The European Union hopes that the agreement will be signed in November