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Institute of World Policy held a videoconference “Soft Power as a Means to Success in World Politics: Lessons of Poland for Ukraine” with Adam Michnik editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, famous Polish essayist, historian and policy analyst.Videoconference “Soft Power as a Means to Success in World Politics: Lessons of Poland for Ukraine” took place within the framework of the project “Ukraine’s Soft Power: A tool for effective foreign policy”, which is implemented by the Institute of World Policy with the support of the UNITER/Pact.

Talking to the Ukrainian experts he claimed that Poland will keep on cupporting the European aspirations of Ukraine.
”Strong Ukraine corresponds to the national interests of Poland’, he said.

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Adam Michnik explained the behavior and hospitability expressed by President Komorovsky to his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovich during the visit of the later to Warsaw as a due respect to Ukrainian State, not a personal emotions.
”Poland will do its best to make Ukraine realize, that it is not doomed to be always dependent on Kremlin’, he stated.

However, Poland should be careful in developing its relations with Ukraine, as it stills lack the transparent and comprehensive foreign policy.

Institute of World Policy has presented the policy paper “Scenarios for the Development of the Transnistria Conflict. Challenges to European Security”.This report was prepared by the Institute of World Policy (Ukraine) in partnership with the, the Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Foundation – PAUCI (Poland), the Institute for Public Affairs (Slovakia), the Institute of Sociology under the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Hungary), and the Association for International Affairs (Czech Republic).

This study was made possible thanks to the support of the International Visegrad Fund and the Black Sea Trust, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The full text of the Policy Paper is available here.

Experts consider the rollback of democracy in Ukraine to be the hindrance for its free trade with the EU.The videoconference Kyiv-Brussels was organized by the Institute of World Policy together with Carnegie Europe (Brussels).
During the DVC, Mr. Philippe Cuisson, Deputy Head of the European Union Bilateral Relations – Europe (non-EU) & Central Asia, head of the negotiating group of the European Commission on a free trade area with Ukraine, Ina Kirsch, representative of the Policy Department of the Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union at the European Parliament, and Olga Shumylo-Tapiola, visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, told how deep, how close and how expensive the free trade area with the European Union in case of Ukraine.
They consider the democratic rollback to hinder the further development of free trade between the EU and Ukraine.

“EU’s member-states are not so worried about the trade competition with Ukraine. They are worried about the democracy and rule of law in Ukraine”, – Mr. Cuisson stated. Ina Kirsch also claimed that the “Association Agreement with Ukraine is to be the deepest document of such type ever signed by the European Union with the third country. At the moment Ukraine does not correspond to Copenhagen criteria. You should persuade national parliaments, so they realize that they need this agreement”.
Mrs. Kirsch, in particular, underlined that parliaments of France, Germany and Netherlands are the most concerned with democratic values and democracy issues. She added that the ratification of the Association Agreement by member-states will probably take no less than two years.

Institute of World Policy held the videoconference with Tbilisi “20 years of Independence: is it enough time to build the European State?”.Ukrainian experts, journalists and youth leaders had an opportunity to discuss the current situation in Ukraine and Georgia with Kakha Bendukidze, former Minister of Economy of Georgia, the founder of Free University of Tbilisi, and Gia Nodia, Professor, Director of the International School for Caucasus Studies, Ilia State University.
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They claimed that the reforms in Georgia can be perfect example of how the country can be modernized within the short period of time.
Answering the questions from the Ukrainian experts, Kakha Bendukidze said that Georgia had managed to create the distinct structure of power, which allowed to reform the economy.
“However, our main task is to liberalize the economy even further”, he claimed.

On suggestion that effectivenes of reforms could provoke Russia in 2008 he argued that these issues are not inter-dependable.
“You may make Russia react agressively without doing anything as well. There are hardly any country that managed to keep the relations with Russia on the stable and good level”, he explained.

Gia Nodia also stressed out the importance of the new North Caucasus strategy of Georgia. “Such soft power and soft impact may have longgoing positive effects’, he said.

Media-club with Giorgi Baramia, the chairman of the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia took place on May 23rd in the Institute of World Policy.Giorgi Baramia held the presentation “Occupied Abkhazia, Georgia: Background and Current Situation”, in which he stressed on the Abkhazia’s historical background, occupation of the region and the current status quo.
He stated the Georgian government paid much attention to the development of Abkhazia, supporting various programs in the fields of education, health care, infrastructural projects.
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“The population of Abkhazia realizes that while Georgia is undergoing boosting economic development, Abkhazia is facing big troubles, like high uneployment, high criminal rate. We have to be give a hope for these people, to make them believe in their future”, – Baramia stated.

He is currently paying an official visit to Kyiv and having several meetinhs with the Ukrainian authorities.

“Ukraine truly supports the territorial integrity of Georgia”, claimed Georgi Baramia and added that he believes that Georgia will be reunited soon and the conflict will be peacefully resolved.