Solana sees Ukraine as special case

The European Neighbourhood Agreement could be launched at the EU summit in December

By Oana Lungescu BBC World Service Brussels correspondent

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana has said that relations with Ukraine remain an important strategic priority for the EU, despite allegations that the country sold radar equipment to Iraq.

Mr Solana said the allegations would be looked at carefully, but he insisted that the EU must take a strategic, rather than a tactical view of the country.

Ukraine is a fundamental country for the stability of Europe and we cannot close our eyes to that very important fact.

Javier Solana

Washington has suspended $54m of aid to Ukraine after announcing it had evidence that audio tapes provided by president Kuchma's former bodyguard - on which Mr Kuchma approves the deal with Iraq - were genuine.

Mr Solana told the BBC: "We have to distinguish very well a problem with the leadership of today in Ukraine, if that is the case, and Ukraine as such.

"Ukraine is a fundamental country for the stability of Europe and we cannot close our eyes to that very important fact."

On Monday, EU foreign ministers were discussing ways to upgrade relations with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova after the EU's eastward expansion.

The EU plans to grant Ukraine more than $75m worth of aid this year. Gunnar Wiegand, a spokesman for the European Commission, said there were no plans for the moment to suspend the aid.

But one EU diplomat said the allegations showed the need for strong conditions to be attached to any new agreements EU is to sign with Ukraine.

Proposal

Mr Solana suggests to develop links based on shared values

A joint proposal by Javier Solana and Chris Patten, the European external affairs commissioner, put on the table at the foreign ministers' meeting in Brussels on Monday tries to avoid new dividing lines in Europe after 10 former communist countries join the bloc.

Enlargement will move the EU's borders close to the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and Mr Solana argues they too have to be taken into account.

"What we have to think about is that we cannot leave three countries in limbo. They are part of the European continent, we have a special relationship with them, then we have to analyse how we want to deal with them in the future," says Mr Solana.

After enlargement

The Solana/Patten proposal says that the EU should develop a more durable basis for relations with its immediate neighbours after enlargement, but that the process should be based on a shared set of political and economic values.

Closer trade and political links would follow, but the paper makes clear that they would nevertheless fall short of full EU membership or creating shared institutions - as both Ukraine and Moldova would like.

The EU is considering upgrading existing relations with Ukraine with a new European Neighbourhood Agreement. But it remains undecided whether to set dates for setting up free trade areas with any of the three countries.

The European Neighbourhood Agreement, which could be launched at the EU summit in Copenhagen in December, to coincide with EU enlargement, would in principle be open to all three countries.

But it's unlikely they would be extended any time soon to Belarus, run by the autocratic Alexander Lukashenka, or to Moldova, Europe's poorest country.