Ukraine on Tuesday shelved a European summit it was to host this week ahead of the Euro football after most participants pulled out in protest over the treatment of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
The Central European summit, originally set to be hosted by President Viktor Yanukovych in the Crimean resort of Yalta on Friday and Saturday, was to be a showpiece event one month before Ukraine co-hosts the Euro 2012 football. “In connection with the fact that a number of European leaders are unable to take part in the Yalta summit for different reasons, Ukraine has decided to postpone it,” the foreign ministry said in a statement. “It will be held at a later date to be decided through diplomatic channels,” it added.
At least 10 EU leaders had officially let it be known they would not attend the summit, leaving Yanukovych facing the prospect of hosting an embarrassingly lonely meeting with a handful of fellow heads of state. EU heavyweight Germany was the first country to announce a boycott of the summit and was followed by the likes of Italy and the Czech Republic. Ukraine’s Euro co-host Poland had steadfastly insisted that it would attend.
The EU Commission has said all EU commissioners will also boycott matches hosted by Ukraine in the Euro itself and Germany has not ruled out such a move for its ministers, in what would be a huge blow to Kiev. Tymoshenko was jailed for seven years in October on charges of abuse of power while in office, after a trial that was bitterly criticised by the West as appearing politically motivated. The controversy has intensified in recent weeks as the countdown begins to the championships, with Tymoshenko going on hunger strike and claiming to have been beaten by guards at her prison in Kharkiv.
In a possible bid to defuse the diplomatic crisis, the authorities announced that Tymoshenko would be transferred Tuesday (May 8) to a Kharkiv hospital outside prison for treatment supervised by a German doctor. Signalling that the plan may have hit a snag, the prisons service then said the former prime minister had delayed her planned move by at least one day. Tymoshenko “needed more time to think and consult with her attorney,” the prison service said in a statement, indicating the move could still take place on Wednesday.
Ukraine had hoped that the Euro would be the perfect shop window for the country but analysts have said the event risks becoming a fiasco as the government’s image goes from bad to worse. Amid a growing PR nightmare, a Ukrainian newspaper owned by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, a long-time patron of Yanukovych, apologised for printing an editorial that said Germany had not changed since the Third Reich.
