Understanding “New Europe”
UA Historical Encounters Forum I
Polish-Ukrainian Relations
Understanding “New Europe”
Polish, Ukrainian heavyweights exchange views in New York
(Originally published in the National Tribune – April 2, 2004)
On March 25, New York University’s Torch Club Forum hosted a symposium entitled “Poland, Ukraine and the Concept of ‘New Europe’.” In her welcoming remarks, Dr. Vera Jelinek, Director of New York University’s Lillian Vernon Center of International Affairs, accentuated the international nature of Torch Club events noting that Hans Blix, the former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, was their most recent guest. Jellinek officially opened the symposium by introducing the moderator, Professor Walter Zaryckyj, from NYU’s McGhee Division Liberal Arts Program and keynote speakers: Professor Piotr Naimski, the former national security advisor to Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Ambassador Borys Tarasyuk, former Foreign Minister of Ukraine.
As moderator, Zaryckyj took the privilege of the chair to introduce some of the potential issues tied to the theme of the symposium. He brought up the notion that Poland and Ukraine essentially shared a common concern that might make them the archetypal “New Europeans.” At the center of that concern was the historical trauma that could be best summed up by the succinct title of a new documentary by Slawko Novytsky: Between Hitler and Stalin; Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia not only threatened the respective sovereignties of Poland and Ukraine, but also endangered their very existence. At an earlier stage in history, the forces that Hitler and Stalin represented may have had different names and more refined methods, for example, Kaiserism and Czarism, and in the future, Germany and Russia might give their “will to domination” yet other monikers, but whatever the designation, both Ukraine and Poland faced eternal geopolitical verities. The nations were simply the largest members of a group of countries, referred to as East Europeans, who were stuck between two perennial great powers who were prone to acting like eight-hundred pound gorillas, at their worst – on a genocidal level. And when the gorillas acted up, a friend was always found in the United States. As a result, Poland, Ukraine and other East Europeans tended to view their American friend in a very different way than their relatives in Western Europe. Zaryckyj offered this as one possible explanation for the term: “New Europeans.”
Speaking from a Polish point of view, Naimski responded to Zaryckyj’s attempt to delineate “New Europe” by describing it as “poignantly Americentric” and then opened a new line of approach. He did think that Europeans might be dividing into two fraternal camps, but that the issue ultimately had less to do with transatlantic relations and more to do with internal European dynamics. “Old Europe” still operated on the principles of the Treaty of Rome signed back in the 1950’s. And the core group of “Common Marketeers” saw each new group that signed up as a terrible burden that had to be trained to behave in “civilized European fashion,” like the elder Europeans. Old Europe was also prone to treating the Polish, Baltic, and Balkan borders as the “last stops” in Europe. Hence, places like Moldova, Ukraine, the Caucasus Republics, Turkey and even Belarus were left in a terrible no-man’s land inappropriately designated as “neighbors of Europe.” How did they then differ from Algeria, Libya and Morocco? The “New Europeans” considered this policy to be dangerous and in security matters, ultra-dangerous. It left Eurasia with a “field of play” that could eventually be absorbed as a “sphere of influence”.
Representing a Ukrainian viewpoint, Tarasyuk began by agreeing with Naimski’s remarks about the “Americentricity” of the model initially described by Zaryckyj. Like Professor Naimski, he also noted the risk of a potential divide in Europe between the “Treaty of Rome element” and “Others”; Tarasyuk concurred that Old Europe was drawing “bogus” European borders. Subsequently, Ambassador Tarasyuk raised another salient point concerning the function “New Europe” could serve. “New Europeans” were once part of a totalitarian system. Most of them have made, in the last decade, a successful transition to the rule of law, democratic politics, a thriving civil society and free market economics. Such experiences could serve both sides of the larger EuroAtlantic community as a model for political transitions and transformations around the rest of the planet. Here, however, Tarasyuk raised a key side issue. Poland’s moves were now irreversible; Ukraine was threatened with a possible slide backwards. The latter development was troubling or should be considered so by all concerned parties in the EuroAtlantic world. Tarasyuk ended with a question: If Ukraine could be manipulated by “the enemies of democratization”, might not the same scenario unfold in other, even more advanced, countries in New Europe? Once the presentation was completed, the speakers proceeded to take questions from the audience.
The Torch Club event was well attended by dozens of instructors and students of international affairs. It was part of a four-day symposium in New York that brought experts from Poland, Ukraine and the United States together to discuss their countries’ relations. On March 26, a two-day conference entitled “Polish-Ukrainian Relations: Past, Present and Future” commenced at Columbia University. The 2004 Polish-Ukrainian Historical Encounters Series Gala Reception was held at the Ukrainian Institute of America on March 27th, 2004.