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The Brussels secret of the Party of Regions
Sergey Leshchenko, Wednesday, March 21, 2012, at 22:24
Viktor Yanukovych and the Party of Regions, whose reputation is destroyed by curtailing democracy in Ukraine, are trying to correct their image in Brussels.
A few days ago, Ukrayinska Pravda already wrote that the Azarov government decided to engage the American lobbyist company Apco . She should help negotiate with the International Monetary Fund after the "reformist government" failed them.
ТNow we have become aware of the details of yet another story, as the Party of Regions is trying to save its reputation in the West and incline its European establishment.
Recently, the Belgian Ministry of Justice issued a registration certificate for the organization under the solemn title "European Center of Modern Ukraine", which can be called one of the chains of rehabilitation of Yanukovych in Europe.
The reason for our searches was the publication on the website of the Party of Regions on the day of their Saturday congress, which came out under the title "The MEP: Our goal is to see Ukraine in the European Union."
This was a rather com pletive speech addressed to the regionals by the gentleman Robert van de Waeter , whose site the regionalists described as "European MP". A quick search on the website of the European Parliament proved that such a deputy does not really exist.
Instead, Mr van de Waert serves as an advisor to the Department of the Neighboring Countries of the Secretariat of the Social Democratic Party of the European Parliament. This is the middle section of the expert environment, and, of course, calling it an European deputy is misleading.
Robert van de Waiter
After the day's announcement hung on the regionals website, the author of these lines recorded the blogs of the "Ukrainian Truth" - only then Robert van de Waiter's post was corrected.
Sam text of the comment of Mr. van de Waiter surprised. After all, although he works for the socialists of the European Parliament, who have an agreement on cooperation with the Party of Regions, but recently the tone of even the European left on Ukraine has changed to the worse.
The sign of this is the absence of any, even neutral congratulations from the Social Democrats, to the Congress of the Party of Regions. Moreover, according to the "Ukrainian Truth", subordinates Azarov tried to get at least a symbolic message from Brussels. But it did not work out.
We became interested in the figure of Robert van de Waiter and accidentally came across interconnections, which may indicate that his warm response to the Regions is only a chain of a longer and more interesting game.
Consequently, Mr van de Waert has a wife named Ina Kirsch , who for many years worked as an administrator for external affairs in the European Parliament.
Another six months ago, Ms. Kirsch published on the Friedrich Ebert Foundation website a job about Ukraine, signed by her full name, Ina Cris Van de Waert.
But recently she uses only a shorter form of family name, although she remains married to Mr. Van de Waiter. The possible reason is that now Ms. Kirch heads an interesting non-governmental organization in Belgium - she is the executive director of the European Center for Modern Ukraine .
Brussels cell
The news about the opening of the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine" was published on the website of the government agency UkrInform on January 19, 2012. Mrs Kirsch reports that Leonid Kozhara, deputy regional member, became the president of the organization.
"According to Kirsch, the organization aims to inform about political life in Ukraine, the establishment of contacts at the political, business and cultural levels between Ukrainian and European political forces ..."
"In addition, the organization at the expert level will offer political and legislative initiatives aimed at developing cooperation between Ukraine and the European Union," the report also said.
Although the newly created organization still does not even have a site, Mrs. Kirsch is already quite active in commenting on events in Ukraine.
From time to time, her comments appear on the news feed of the same government agency UkrInform. Moreover, their tone is unusual - if European experts are more likely to curtail the oppression of democracy to the Ukrainian authorities, then Mrs. Kirsch criticizes the Ukrainian opposition or ... the Europeans themselves.
Inna Kirsch
The author of these lines could not find any unpleasant Bank words from Mrs. Kirsch. Instead, in March, on the pages of the agency UkrInform, Kirsch accused European officials of double standards in relation to Kyiv - they say, having recognized the elections in Russia, they would never allow such a calm reaction, if this happened in Ukraine.
"The European Union once again showed that it has different approaches to different countries, in the presence of similar problems, (...) If the situation in Ukraine was the same, then the reaction would definitely be different," the expert said.
Another comment by Kirsch relates to the statements of representatives of "Freedom" about the singer Gaitana - and was critical of the opponents of the Ukrainian authorities.
"How can the so-called democratic opposition in Ukraine cooperate with such a" Liberty "party and share its place in the elections? How can the Yatsenyuk and Klychko parties cooperate with such a party?" For me, this is not compatible with European values , "said Mrs. Kirsch
In addition, it's interesting that she was present at the last congress of the Party of Regions - on his facebook, Mrs. Kirsch laid out a photo of Klyuyev with Levochkin and accompanied him with the words: "Returned home from the congress of the Party of Regions. Unexpectedly positive impressions. Never heard so much social. -Democratic ideology in Ukraine ".
We became interested and began to explore this issue further. As it turned out, Ms. Kirch registered the domain name for the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine" - ecfmu.eu
According to the official register, the domain owner is Ina Kirsch van de Waiter, but she is not a Belgian non-governmental organization, and the British company Gloworth Limited.
It was created last year in Glasgow, it issued one share at a price of 1 pound sterling, and the nominee owner of the company is a native of the African state Malawi.
Our further investigations revealed new interesting facts. So, recently, First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin paid a visit to London, where he tried to convince the European community that the condemnation of Yulia Tymoshenko was justified.
Moreover, he once again voiced a dubious version of the fact that Tymoshenko paid for the murder of Yevhen Scherban
(About who and how they paid for Killers, read in our investigation .)
And, according to sources of the "Ukrainian Truth", Renata Kuzmina at these meetings in Britain was accompanied by Ms. Kirsch as a representative of one of the PR agencies. Moreover, Mrs Kirsch helped Kuzmin with the translation.
Normal European practice?
We contacted Mrs. Kirsch by email and asked to answer a number of questions. he declined to discuss the topic of her participation in meetings with Kuzmin in London, referring to the legislative norm on non-interference in private life.
Regarding other issues, Ms. Kirch said that she personally invited Kozhara to be president of the newly created "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine", since Kojara is "a well-known expert on European issues." "Our organization is trying to build bridges between Ukraine and Europe, and this can not be done without the involvement of Ukrainian politicians," she assured.
The second issue was whether the other Ukrainian politicians were members of the governing bodies of the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine". Ms. Kirsch only stated that "in the future, we will strive to gain the interest of politicians from the European Union and Ukraine in terms of possible membership in the organization."
Another issue raised by us was a possible conflict of interest - because Ms. Kirsch's husband works for the Socialist Secretariat in the European Parliament and can influence the assessment of this political force in Ukraine, while she heads a private non-governmental organization headed by a regional deputy.
"For us in Europe this is a normal practice - as long as it is done openly and transparently. If you look at the personal relationship between many members of the European Parliament, European structures, PR agencies and commercial organizations, you will find that this is the most common practice. Fortunately, this was one of the main achievements of the international women's movement in the modern era ", - she assured.
"For the last 27 years I have made a professional career myself. My professional life has always been independent of the positions of my husband - both politically and financially."
The fourth issue was about who is the main donor of the new organization. Mrs. Kirsch responded with astonishment: "By this time, I mainly invested my personal funds in the development of this structure, but I hope that it will change in the future. We are currently in the process of raising funds and hope for success in this matter in the coming months ... Our membership fee is 100 euros a year, and anyone who shares our principles and statute can join, "said Ms. Kirsch.
The founders are not talking aloud
On this, our investigation should be completed. We have already established that a non-governmental organization has appeared in Belgium, whose leader often speaks with Ukrainian issues in tone that is in tune with the Party of Regions.
But an in-depth search in Belgian databases brought even more interesting results.
We managed to obtain a constituent document "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine", which somewhat shed light on the question where Mrs. Kirsch avoided a direct answer.
So, the charter of the organization was signed on December 29, 2011 in Brussels, and its founders are six people: it is Inna Kirsch , the lord Andrew Edgel, whom we did not manage to identify, and also Antonina Russeva , the press attache of the group of socialists Bulgaria in the European Parliament.
But the three other founders of the Belgian organization turned out to be much more interesting. This is already mentioned regional Leonid Kozhara , as well as two more deputies of the Verkhovna Rada - Vitaliy Kalyuzhny and Eugene Geller . All as one - members of the Party of Regions.
Remember, one of our questions to Mrs. Kirsch concerned whether other Ukrainian politicians are members of the governing bodies of the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine"? She hid from specifics, and the charter gives a direct answer - why.
Treasurer of the organization appointed deputy regional Vitaliy Kalyuzhny . This 32-year-old deputy from Donetsk is notorious for readers. But his biography, before his election to the Verkhovna Rada, makes it clear that he answers the question of why he was appointed to this post.
Because Mr. Kalyuzhnyy from 2000 to 2005 worked in the structures of Boris Kolesnikov: originally a program engineer at Firma Yug, and then - a leading software developer of the "Production Association" Kyiv-Konti ", which also belongs to Kolesnikov.
The third Ukrainian participant of the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine", also a native of Donetsk, Yevgeny Geller , was the president of the Shakhtar futsal club to the deputy. Now - owner of Luhansk football team "Zorya".
Both Kalyuzhny and Geller are members of the informal group of Rinat Akhmetov in the Verkhovna Rada, as well as those close to Borys Kolesnikov and Andriy Klyuyev.
These are the names that Mrs. Kirsch hid when we asked her about the people who created the "European Center for Contemporary Ukraine". Something suggests that the newly established Belgian organization will never have financial problems, but whether it will have confidence - now it's a big issue.
