Ukraine's new pro-Russian leader visits anxious EU leaders

(BRUSSELS) - The EU rolled out the red carpet Monday for new Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, on his first foreign trip, hoping to hear that his pro-Russian past won't reverse Kiev's recent turn to the West.

Yanukovych, who won disputed elections last month, arrived in Brussels Monday for talks with EU president Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso and Polish EU parliament president Jerzy Buzek.

Part of Europe's great interest is due to Ukraine's role as a key transit for Russian natural gas, a major source of energy in many EU nations.

The new Ukrainian leader has vowed to follow a path of neutrality in a switch from the strongly pro-Western stance of the defeated Orange Revolution leaders.

Such talk fuels EU fears that his country of 46 million people, bridging Russia and the European Union, will veer off on a more Moscow-friendly course than his predecessor Viktor Yushchenko chose.

Yushchenko was a strong proponent of Ukraine joining both the European Union and NATO.

In contrast, Yanukovych is not scheduled to hold talks at the NATO headquarters in Brussels.

He has said he sees the former Soviet republic as a "non-aligned European country," effectively putting an end to any ambitions to joining NATO, a prospect which had angered Moscow.

Yanukovych's stance regarding the EU remains more ambiguous, though European leaders and political observers have noted that he will be travelling first to Europe and then on to Russia.

That shows that for Ukraine and its president "the EU remains a major factor," said France's European affairs minister Pierre Lellouche.

In comments likely to be welcomed in Brussels, a top Yanukovych aide said ahead of his trip that the president would not seek to bring Ukraine into a Moscow-backed customs union comprising Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

However other sources close to Yanukovych have not ruled out the possibility, which would be incompatible with Ukraine's ambition of creating a free-trade zone with the European Union.

For his part Yanukovych will seek messages in support of introducing visa-free travel to and from Europe, despite the immigration fears expressed in some EU capitals.

"We would like that the EU starts to make steps towards Ukraine," Yanukovych aide Ganna Guerman told reporters on the flight to Brussels.

For Kiev "the main subject is the question of visa regimes," she added. "What we would like is to set a date for abolishing visas for Ukrainians."

Last May the EU launched an Eastern Partnership to "accelerate political association and further economic integration" between its 27 member states and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -- all previously under Soviet influence.

Brussels will also be hoping that Yanukovych will advance reforms which have stalled amid the political ructions that followed the disputed February 7 presidential election.

Beaten presidential hopeful Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to recognise Yanukovych's victory and remains the country's prime minister.

The other hot topic will be supplies of Russian natural gas that transit via Ukraine. The EU will want reassurances that there will be no repetition of the Russia-Ukraine gas disputes of recent years, including the one in January 2009 that disrupted supplies to over a dozen European countries.

Yanukovych will want to discuss the creation of a consortium between Russian energy giant Gazprom and European countries to upgrade Ukraine's pipelines, according to Nico Lange of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Kiev.

Under Yushchenko, the participation of Russia in such a consortium would have been unthinkable.

EU relations with Ukraine