EU rows with Belarus, Ukraine spoil summit
(WARSAW) - Poland slammed authoritarian Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko on Thursday as the EU headed into a long-awaited summit with ex-Soviet states amid mounting concern over rights abuse both in Belarus and Ukraine.
"As long as the people of Belarus are repressed, deeper relations with the European Union and more economic assistance will be impossible," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said on meeting with rights campaigners from Belarus.
The Belarussian leader's heavy-handed crackdown on opponents, and the Ukraine trial of ex Orange Revolution leader Yulia Tymoshenko, are clouding a two-day summit originally aimed to bolster ties between the 27-nation bloc and six nations on its eastern flank.
Lukashenko himself is on a European Union sanctions blacklist for rights abuse and cannot travel to join counterparts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
And disputes over how to respond to democratic back-sliding in both Belarus and Ukraine are holding up the drafting of a final statement originally due to breathe new life into the EU's partnership with its neighbours, an EU diplomat told AFP.
Hosted by current EU president Poland, the Eastern Partnership summit is only the second held since its launch in 2009 under the initiative of Poland and Sweden.
In a pointed snub, Belarus opted to send only its Warsaw ambassador, rather than its foreign minister who was invited in Lukashenko's stead.
The decision of senior EU leaders with meet with opposition representatives on the sidelines of the two-day summit may have played a role along with the likelihood Minsk will face severe criticism at the gathering.
The EU is expected to slam the regime for a crackdown following the December 2010 re-election of Lukashenko -- in office since 1994 -- in a ballot the opposition and Western observers allege was marred by fraud.
On Ukraine, the abuse-of-power trial of Tymoshenko -- a bitter rival of Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych -- has become a key obstacle in Kiev's ambitions for better trade and visa ties with the EU.
"Relations between those in power and the opposition, democratic standards, will obviously influence attitudes towards the integration process," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after meeting Ukraine's head of state Viktor Janukovych.
On the eve of the Warsaw summit, the EU had slammed Ukrainian prosecutors for having demanded a seven-year prison sentence for Tymoshenko.
The onetime leader is accused of having abused her power as prime minister by signing gas import agreements with Russia in 2009 that the authorities argue were overly advantageous for Moscow and are now costing the budget billions of dollars.
The envoy of the European Union to Kiev on Wednesday accused Ukraine of turning a deaf ear to its pleas to free the opposition leader.
"It seems that the message was not heard," said envoy Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira.
The EU has made an association agreement with Ukraine conditional on a resolution of the Tymoshenko case which is in keeping with democratic principles.
"The issue figures highly on the summit agenda," a senior Brussels diplomat told AFP speaking on condition of anonymity.
Part of the EU's 2004 "big-bang" expansion from 15 members, Poland, which took the six-month rotating helm of the EU in July, is a staunch supporter of strengthening links between the bloc and fellow countries from behind the former Iron Curtain.
The announcement of the opening of talks on EU association agreements -- a first step to membership -- with Moldova and Georgia is expected in Warsaw.