High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8aab60ca-5857-11e3-9da6-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2lyY2NIFh
The EU was scrambling on Thursday night to rescue a deal to integrate Ukraine more closely with the west, as demonstrators again massed in Kiev calling on their president, Viktor Yanukovich, to sign the agreement.
European Union leaders flew into a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, for their first meeting with Mr Yanukovich since his government last week dramatically froze preparations for the deal and instead reopened talks on closer ties with Russia.
Angela Merkel, German chancellor, told reporters as she arrived in Vilnius she saw “no hope” of signing a deal with Kiev at the summit as planned, but the “door was still open” to Ukraine.
At a dinner in Vilnius, the 28 EU heads of government were set to discuss whether to sign a proposed joint declaration on Friday with Mr Yanukovich saying talks would resume between the two sides in hopes of signing the deal no later than March.
Ukraine is facing what leaders on both sides have called a “civilisational” choice between a trade and association agreement with the EU that would tilt Ukraine towards the west, or deepening relations with Russia.
It has come under intense pressure from Moscow not to sign the EU deal. Russia has banned a range of Ukrainian products, and severely disrupted trade by stepping up border controls on goods and on Ukrainians working in Russia.
Failure to conclude a deal with Ukraine would be a blow to the EU’s four-year-old “Eastern Partnership” programme, aimed at projecting European values into six ex-Soviet republics by offering deeper trade and political ties in return for reforms.
In Kiev’s central square and other Ukrainian cities, thousands of protesters gathered for a seventh day to call for Mr Yanukovich to sign the deal, and said more would arrive today and over the weekend if he did not. A protest last Sunday attracted more than 100,000 people – the biggest such gathering since the 2004 Orange Revolution.
A decision by students this week to go on strike has injected fresh energy into the protests. Some protesters said authorities were trying to prevent supporters from pro-European regions of western Ukraine – which played a big part in the 2004 uprising – from flocking to Kiev.
It is unclear whether protests could reach the numbers seen nine years ago. But the advent of social media has given organisers a tool they did not have in 2004, with a Facebook page for the protests attracting tens of thousands of followers.
The potential joint EU-Ukraine declaration was discussed by Stefan Fule, EU commissioner responsible for Ukraine, and Ukraine’s deputy premier, Serhiy Arbuzov, in Vilnius on Thursday.
