Ukraine

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Grand Committee

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for obtaining this debate. I was the BBC “Newsnight” producer in Moscow during the fall of the Soviet Union and I have been back to both Ukraine and Russia many times since then. Therefore, I share your Lordships’ great concern about the events that have been taking place. However, it seems to me that one of the battles on which we really have to concentrate is for the hearts and minds of the Russian-speaking people of Ukraine. If we can build a country which is politically and economically stable, as the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, mentioned, it will be a country in which all its citizens, including the Russian speakers, will want to live.

For the past 20 years, Ukraine has been increasingly dysfunctional—a trend which has accelerated in the past three years as corruption has extended into almost every aspect of Ukrainian life and there has been a destruction of the rule of law. We now have to channel the energies released by the events in February to create a democratically accountable Government who are supported by an independent judiciary and an accountable police.

The Ukrainian Government have set up an anti-corruption body, which is trying to think about how to introduce transparency into government. It is going to need a lot of support from our Government and the Governments of the EU. Open government depends on publishing reliable data about expenditure and income. An open procurement policy makes it harder to hide bribes and overprice contracts. I have spoken to DfID, which obviously has the gold standard on this and is well known for leading the way in open government and open contracts. It said that it has had someone in Kiev assessing the situation and looking at what can be done. I should like to ask the Minister what else can be done to make sure that DfID’s expertise can be rapidly deployed to help the Government in Ukraine to establish themselves as transparent.

One of the worst areas of corruption has been the subsidising of domestic gas prices so that they are eight times cheaper than those charged to industry. As a result, it is estimated that last year alone $2 billion-worth of fraud was perpetrated as gas was diverted towards business, with businessmen pocketing the difference. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said, the IMF package includes a 50% rise in the cost of Ukraine’s domestic gas, to take effect from May. This will hit many people on low incomes very hard. The country has an average income of $6,500 a year and, without some kind of safety net, I am concerned that the price hike is going to stoke discontent and inflame the eastern provinces in particular. Surely western Governments can contribute to any safety net to help to smooth this transition period while the price rise takes effect.

A transparent Government and business sector are important, but they go hand in hand with the implementation of the rule of law. Ukraine’s 1996 constitution emphasises the importance of the rule of law and specifically states that all citizens are subject to universally applicable laws. However, for the past 20 years these laws have not been implemented by either the judiciary or the police. The trend over the past few years of President Yanukovych’s rule has been to incorporate the judiciary into the executive arm of the Government. One of the country’s leading legal experts said that court decisions were decided by a phone call from the presidential administration.

The EU countries of eastern Europe have huge experience of transforming the judiciary from being an organ of government and the Communist Party to being independent. After major reforms of the institutions and personnel, the judges in much of eastern Europe are exercising impressive independence. Surely we should ensure that this experience is shared with the Ukrainians to help them to build similar institutions.

Likewise, anyone who has been to Ukraine, which I have, and has suffered from the corruption of the police—particularly the traffic police—will know that the corruption is universal. Nobody trusts the police. They are there for their own good and not for the good of the law. That, I think, is the view of most people in the country. It is interesting to look at what has happened in Georgia, where they fired all the police force at the basic level, re-recruiting from universities and training them. They looked really carefully at the hierarchy. That has been quite effective.

Democratic accountability cannot be imposed on Ukraine from the outside. The Ukrainian people have to come together and coalesce around a determination to build a country worth living in. We in the West can do many things to help and advise the Ukrainians in this long and difficult task. I urge the Minister to ensure that our Government do everything they can to help this process.