The Ukrainian parliament today delayed a vote on whether to allow the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko to receive medical treatment in Germany.
The vote is a first step towards Tymoshenko’s potential release, which in turn could enable Ukraine to sign significant trade and political agreements with the European Union on 28-29 November.
The jailing of Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, has become emblematic in EU eyes of a problem of politicised prosecutions in Ukraine.
The EU has long insisted that the fate of the agreements is not conditional on Tymoshenko’s release, and Ukraine has undertaken a range of steps intended to allay EU concerns about ‘selective justice’. Three of Tymoshenko’s former ministers are no longer in prison. Nonetheless, Tymoshenko’s continued confinement, based according to the EU on a flawed legal process, has emerged as the make-or-break issue for Ukraine’s hopes of signing the agreements in Vilnius next week.
Under a proposal put forward by two EU envoys, Pat Cox and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Tymoshenko’s departure for Germany would be followed by a partial pardon by President Viktor Yanukovych.
Yanukovych, who has yet to say whether he would be willing to pardon Tymoshenko, has conditioned permission for Tymoshenko to receive treatment in Germany on a parliamentary vote.
The Ukrainian parliament rejected the idea of treatment abroad when it was first put to the vote last Wednesday (13 October).
The vote is now expected to be held on Thursday.