Publication

This paper examines the consequences of the October 2012 parliamentary elections in Ukraine and their implications for relations with the EU. The members of the subsequently formed government were selected mainly on the basis of loyalty to the president, and the new government has yet to send any convincing pro-European signals. If the EU considers democracy and the rule of law genuinely important, then it must not abandon its critical stance vis-à-vis the Ukrainian leadership. But isolating Ukraine would not make sense either from an economic or from a security point of view and would send the wrong signal to the Ukrainian population.