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After several months of talks, the European Parliament’s special envoys, former European Parliament president Pat Cox and Poland’s former president Aleksander Kwaśniewski, have failed to obtain Yulia Tymoshenko’s release from prison. But Europe should continue to push Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to free her, says Gazeta Wyborcza’s commentator Wacław Radziwinowicz, noting that the two men have still managed to do a lot for the former Ukrainian PM, who was sentenced to seven years in prison in October 2011. Radziwinowicz writes that-
Europe is paying close attention to the fate of the “Orange revolution princess”, and persistently, but also tactfully, is demanding fair treatment for her. This gives Tymoshenko a safety guarantee. Yanukovych, aware that Brussels is watching him, will not listen to his aides who would love to ‘break the hag’s neck’.
But what is at stake in this game is not only Tymoshenko’s future, but also Ukraine’s place in Europe, the daily’s commentator observes. All the more in light of recent attempts by Moscow to pull Kiev back into its sphere of influence. However, Yanukovych -
can’t keep vacillating between the East and the West forever. The more Moscow keeps pressing him, the more willing he will be to listen to the European Parliament envoys talking to him patiently, and he will find it easier to realise that if the Ukraine conducts the necessary reforms, it will find its place in Europe.
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