Tymoshenko trial may backfire

In her final statement in the Pechora District Court, former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said she is sure she will be found guilty, though she maintained her innocence. However, her political enemies have little cause for celebration - the trial is concluding at the wrong time and a harsh verdict could backfire on them. In Moscow, the Ukrainian delegation appears to be close to a compromise on the price of Russian gas, and Ukraine has entered the homestretch in talks with the EU on a free trade agreement and political association with the EU. Should Tymoshenko be found guilty and sentenced to seven years as the prosecutor Lilia Frolova has requested, both projects could go down in flames. Is the contract up in the air? Let's start with Russian gas. A prison term for Tymoshenko would undoubtedly have an adverse effect on Ukraine's gas agreements with Russia. Although Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and other government officials insist they have not put any pressure on the court, Kiev has viewed Tymoshenko's trial from the very start as an opportunity to revise its gas contract with Moscow. Tymoshenko was put on trial for exceeding her authority when signing the gas contract between Gazprom and Naftogaz on January 19, 2009. If Tymoshenko is found guilty, the contract under which Ukraine has been receiving gas from Russia for almost three years will be called into question. Russia would like to avoid this scenario, and its president and prime minister have urged Kiev to uphold the signed accords. It turns out that the Kremlin agrees with Tymoshenko who said in her final statement at the courthouse that she acted in the interests of the state in 2009. Is the EU under question? As for the trial's impact on relations with the EU, many European officials and deputies have been sending clear signals to Kiev since Tymoshenko's arrest on August 5 that if she and other Ukrainian opposition leaders are sent to prison, the European Union would downgrade relations with Ukraine. Yanukovych will meet European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday in Warsaw. Although the meeting will come on the sidelines of a summit devoted to a broader project - the EU's Eastern Partnership in which Ukraine takes part - the organizers of the meeting have made it clear that a separate, serious conversation with Yanukovych will focus on Tymoshenko. Yanukovych's European partners are likely to demand that Tymoshenko's sentence be reduced at the very least. They have no other choice given the statements made by European Parliament MPs and the resolution adopted by 27 EU foreign ministers at the recent EU summit on the European Neighborhood Policy. The strongest denunciation of the Tymoshenko trial came from Wilfried Martens, president of the European People's Party and its representative in the European Parliament, whose party is the sister party of Tymoshenko's Batkivschyna. Martens said that in a democracy political decisions are made by citizens through elections, not by a judge. He called for the immediate release of Tymoshenko and other opposition members and demanded that they be allowed to run in the 2012 elections. It seems Yanokovych overestimated the EU's pragmatism and underestimated the importance of values in EU foreign policy. The interview given by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Konstantin Grishchenko to the Internet publication Ukrainska Pravda suggests why this has happened. Ukrainian leaders hoped to sign a free trade agreement with the EU, unattached to domestic political concerns, giving Ukrainian companies access to the European markets. They thought policy and human rights issues could be postponed for the future. Grishchenko said: "An extensive free trade zone between Ukraine and the EU will be established simultaneously with the establishment of political association... Under EU law, only the political component will go through ratification in the national parliaments of the EU members. As for the free trade zone, approval by the European Parliament and Verkhovnaya Rada will be enough to put it into operation." But the most ardent supporters of Tymoshenko and the Ukrainian opposition are sitting in the European Parliament. They are unlikely to be convinced by the references of Grishchenko and Frolova to past trials of European prime ministers, e.g. Helmut Kohl in Germany or Bettino Craxi in Italy, to name a few. As a result of such trials, West European political leaders were primarily held politically responsible rather than criminally responsible for their actions. Mikhail Pogrebinsky, director of the Kiev-based Center for Political Studies and Conflict Management, said: "The Tymoshenko trial may only harm the current government and Ukraine as a whole. The evidence submitted by the prosecution is unconvincing. A guilty verdict and a prison term for Tymoshenko may have the same effect on Yanukovych as the case of the murdered journalist Gongadze had on his predecessor - former President Leonid Kuchma." The murder of Gongadze resulted in a big political defeat for Kuchma several years later. The effect of the Tymoshenko trial could be felt much sooner. The views expressed in this article are the author's and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.