The European Union is taking unprecedented steps to reform Ukraine, using the experience of OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud body.
The scale of corruption in the country has shocked citizens, many of whom wandered around former President Yanukovych’s palatial home, which featured a mock galleon, fake ruins and an opulence that many Ukrainians could hardly imagine.
The issue of corruption is the gravest facing the country and it is a very smart move for the EU to tackle this as a first priority, not least because there must be a serious reform and oversight of the EU funds, some €11.2 billion earmarked for the divided nation. It would be politically disastrous if this money ended up in the hands of black marketers, crooked politicians or those who have looted the nation for so long.
Giovanni Kessler, the head of OLAF, has joined a large delegation that flew into Ukraine Tuesday to begin large-scale reforms of the country’s economic base, shrunk after years of state sponsored corruption.
Enlargement Commissioner, Stefan Fule is in Kiev on his seventeenth mission to Ukraine. With Fule is Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski, who is in charge of Financial Planning in with him along with 10 DGs or DDGs and 3 Heads of Cabinet, making up an unprecedented delegation.
They will be working on a joint roadmap to massively support Ukrainian reform efforts over the short and medium term.
Commissioner Fule is respected by a wide range of Ukrainian politicians, civil society and others, making him the ideal candidate to lead such an unprecedented mission.
In the longer term, the mission demonstrates that the EU, often considered slow to act, has found a way to bring the nation towards Europe, using soft power and one asset that Putin and the oligarchs can’t offer; honest government.
The move is also timely in Brussels, showing the visiting President Obama that Europe can act with speed and resolve.