Ukraine, EU hold summit under Tymoshenko shadow

(KIEV) - Ukraine opened a summit with EU leaders Monday with acrimony over the jailing of ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko clouding talks on a deal that would take Kiev a step closer to membership of the bloc.

Both sides had hoped earlier this year that the summit would see the signing of an Association Agreement between Kiev and the European Union that would mark the first formal move towards Kiev joining the bloc.

However the jailing of Tymoshenko -- condemned by the EU as politically motivated -- has sparked a crisis in ties between Kiev and Brussels just as Russia is putting out feelers to Ukraine to come closer into its orbit.

At one stage, it appeared that the seven-year jail sentence handed to Tymoshenko in August was endangering the summit taking place at all.

The get-together went ahead as scheduled however, with EU president Herman Van Rompuy and EU commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso travelling to Kiev to meet Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych for face-to-face talks, to be followed by a plenary session and a news conference.

"I'm glad that this meeting is happening according to our shared plan," Yanukovych was quoted as saying by his office.

Several hundred Tymoshenko supporters outside the summit venue shouted "Freedom for Yulia!", while being held back by helmeted riot police. They brandished banners with slogans including: "The EU must impose sanctions on Yanukovych's gang."

Officials said ahead of the talks that the chances of the Association Agreement -- a preliminary step before formal ratification -- being signed were now virtually zero due to the acrimony caused by the Tymoshenko case.

"I don't think that the agreement is going to be initialed," a European diplomat told AFP.

Tymoshenko on Monday reaffirmed her backing for European integration and blamed the present government for alienating the European Union with its treatment of political opponents.

"The current authorities are doing everything to destroy this choice for Ukraine... through carrying out political repressions," she said in a statement to journalists through her spokesman, the Interfax news agency reported.

"The breakdown in European integration is not a question of Tymoshenko. It's the absence in Ukraine of democratic standards, which are being destroyed by the current authorities," she was quoted as saying.

Many observers say that the most the summit would achieve was an announcement that negotiations on the accord have been wrapped up, and Ukrainian media expressed anger at the government's digging in its heels.

"Ukraine's leaders are sacrificing a unique chance of accelerated European integration to their wish to stay in power," the Korrespondent weekly wrote in an opinion piece.

One sticking point in the negotiations launched in 2007 is Kiev's insistence on a passage referring to Ukraine's prospects of joining the EU, something that goes too far for Brussels.

"The signature and ratification of the accord will never happen if the current situation does not change," another EU diplomat told AFP.

EU enlargement commissioner Stefan Fule held one-on-one talks with Yanukovych last week in an apparent bid to shift his stance on the jailing of the former prime minister turned opposition leader.

But the president, who has publicly refused to interfere in the case although Tymoshenko accuses him of instigating it in the first place, has shown no sign of flexibility.

Fule also took the highly unusual step of visiting Tymoshenko in the cell amid growing concern over her health which her supporters say has left her bed-ridden with chronic back pains.