Meanwhile ....

I am in the middle of a long (probably too long) blog about Ukraine that, I suspect, will please no-one. In the meantime, I thought I would point out that the EU has not been completely helpless and inactive. No, indeed, it sent its Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle last week to Kiyiv to meet with President Yanukovich and with Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Batkivshchyna, Vitali Klitchko of Udar, and Oleh Tyahnybok of Svoboda, leaders of the three main opposition parties (there are a few more and therein lies one of the problems). On his return, the Commissioner produced this memo:

I conveyed the deep concerns of the EU about the latest developments and underlined the need to end the cycle of violence, to fight against impunity of perpetrators of human rights violations and to continue an inclusive national dialogue to find a way out of the crisis that threatens to further destabilise the country.

Well, that should solve it. More is to come. The egregious and not even very fragrant Cathy Ashton, the EU's High Panjandrum on foreign affairs has been so alarmed by stories that the Ukrainian government is planning a state of emergency that she has pushed her own visit there forward and is going today (Tuesday). No doubt she will know exactly what to say. After all, she managed to put out a statement on the occasion of International Holocaust Memorial Day that somehow did not mention Jews even once. Personally, I think that is stupidity on her and her officials' part but there might be other explanations.