I’m in the UK this week to speak at the Oxford Model Ukraine Conference “Ukraine’s Domestic and Foreign Affairs: Quo Vadis?” (Quo vadis means “Where are you going?” in Latin.) It will be good to hear the views of the assembled experts, and to contribute my own thoughts – I’m speaking first thing on Thursday morning at the beginning of the conference.
Preparing my notes I rediscover the invitation letter, from the Canada-Ukraine Parliamentary Programme last January, which referred to my blog: “A way to improve Ukrainian democracy in 2011”. In that blog I said that the practice of physically blocking the rostrum in the Rada, and the physical punch-ups which often followed, were catastrophic for Ukraine’s image overseas, since they were often the only images of Ukraine that people outside the country ever saw on the news. It’s good to see that so far this year there have not been any further physical confrontations in the Rada. I hope the leaders of Ukraine’s parliamentary groupings ensure that that record is maintained for the rest of 2011 – and, ideally, 2012 too, as Ukraine’s big chance to show itself to the world in a positive light – Euro 2012 – draws near.