Viktor Yanukovych, you have no purpose to be in Malta. You left behind a country in turmoil. Only last week, 350,000 people took to the streets of Kiev, the capital’s biggest protest since the Orange Revolution nine years ago, protesting your decision to freeze signing a cooperation agre-ement with the European Union.
Your people took to the streets pursuing a dream – Europe, you replied back with batons and tear gas – shame on you, Mr President.
You walked away from a pact offered by the EU, swinging trade policy back towards Russia.
You have succumbed to pressure from Moscow, and back-pedalled from signing the deal on closer relations with the EU in favour of renewed economic dialogue with Moscow.
Describing your decision as “a strategic pause in moves closer to Europe” is an insult, to say the least. Hand on heart, Mr President, you want to remain a Moscow stooge.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, too, did his best to keep Malta away from the EU
Of course, as European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said, “the European Union will not force Ukraine, or any other partner, to choose between the European Union or any other regional entity”.
But that doesn’t exclude the fact your position, Mr President, is untenable – you should go, now.
The Kiev demonstrations are clear evidence that the Ukrainian population, at large, has had enough of your presidency.
Your people want to escape Moscow’s orbit and join the European mainstream: that’s their dream, which you continue to forbid.
As heavyweight boxer-turned-opposition politician Vitaly Klitschko told the crowds on Independence Square: “They (your government) stole the dream”.
You promised your people that you will create a society of ‘European standard’, but your decision to back-pedal on the EU pact, and ordering the police and the army to clamp down on the demonstrations, in Kiev, are, in their very nature, the antithesis of a ‘European standard’.
Your people want Europe – they want freedom; they want opportunities; they want to join the rest of the world – but you insist on giving them more ‘Moscow’.
Your visit here is said to have been agreed upon between our Prime Minister and Barroso to ‘make it clear the EU’s door is still open’.
What Barroso and our Prime Minister should have added was that ‘the door is still open – to the people of Ukraine, but not to you,
Mr President, you’ve had your chance, and you’ve lost it – now, do the honourable thing and step down – don’t stop the Ukrainians’ dream from joining the rest of the world.
Mr President, I am not a fan of your host, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, because he, too, did his best to keep Malta away from the EU. He campaigned, vociferously, for Malta to stay out of Europe.
I come, Mr President, from a Labour Party background, but joined the Nationalist Party precisely because of the EU.
My dream, like that of thousands of young people, was for Malta to take its rightful place as an EU member state, and no one was going to hinder that dream.
I understand, perfectly well, the Ukrainian peoples’ frustration to your decision of keeping them away from Europe.
You promised them Europe – and when push came to shove you chose Russia – you dashed their dreams and you have only yourself to blame for that.
Mr President, the absolute majority of people in Malta have no time, and absolutely no sympathy, for leaders who suppress peaceful demonstrations through violent means. Thousands of people suffered at the hands of the Maltese Socialist regime – back in the 1980s, they know what it means to have your voice silenced by the State.
Mr President, the Ukrainian opposition is demanding the release of Yulia Tymoshenko who, your government, has locked up in prison for voicing her dissent against your government. How’s that for ‘European standards?’
I welcome Simon Busuttil’s decision not to attend state dinners during the president’s visit. I have no doubt Busuttil will express, vociferously, his disapproval of Yanukovych’s decision to keep the Ukraine away from the EU and, not least, his decision to suppress peaceful demonstrations in Kiev.
Mr President you have no reason to be in Malta. The will of the people will, ultimately, prevail.
Your presidency is on borrowed time. Mr President, our Prime Minister will not tell you this, but the absolute majority of the Maltese do: you are not welcome in Malta.
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