EU foreign ministers ponder Ukraine soccer snub
- 14.05.2012, 9:40
EU Foreign Ministers will decide today if that helps Yulia Tymoshenko boycott of the football tournament in the Ukraine.
EU foreign ministers will try to decide on Monday whether it would help the fate of jailed Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko if they snub Europe's biggest soccer tournament which Ukraine is co-hosting next month.
President Viktor Yanukovich had been hoping to welcome ministers and government leaders for the high-profile Euro 2012 tournament in Ukraine and Poland which starts on June 8.
The Dutch, whose national team is scheduled to play a game in Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv on June 9, have said they will not send any political representatives. Nor will the European Commission, the European Union executive.
Matches in Poland would not be affected.
Some diplomats are concerned that punishing Ukraine could drive it closer to Russia.
Relations with Belarus - another neighbour where opposition politicians face restrictions - worsened in February after the European Union imposed sanctions on businesses with links to President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994. Belarus and the bloc then carried out tit-for-tat expulsions and withdrawals of ambassadors.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Ukraine is a "dictatorship" and likened it to Belarus.
"We don't think it's necessarily helpful to push Ukraine into a box marked 'Belarus'," said one EU diplomat. "Belarus has a relationship with Russia. Ukraine is a different case. We don't want to push Ukraine away down that path."
Poland urged Ukraine last week to drop laws allowing politicians to be jailed for decisions in office. But Polish leaders oppose a boycott of Euro 2012.
Germany, whose team is due to play in Lviv on June 9, has yet to decide whether to send government representatives to the tournament. One person familiar with German soccer pointed out that the government usually sends top officials only after the team has reached the semi-finals or final.
Separately, the ministers are expected to impose visa bans and asset freezes on three more individuals in Syria associated with the government's repression.