German Ambassador: Almost Impossible to Get Real Guarantees under Budapest Memorandum

The Budapest Memorandum is a political declaration, so it is now almost impossible to get real guarantees under this document.

“The Budapest Memorandum is a political declaration and nothing more. It is not an international agreement. I remember when the Budapest Memorandum was first discussed in 2014, I was called from Germany and asked what it was. I was in Ukraine when it was signed in 1994, but then no one remembered it. It is a political declaration, so it is simply impossible to get these guarantees now,” German Ambassador to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

According to the Ambassador, Germany currently works with the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada and informs about the efforts to settle the conflict in Donbas.

“What we really do, we talk with our partners. There are the Minsk format and the Normandy format. We always talk with the United States, the United Kingdom, as well as with Canada, which did not sign the Budapest Memorandum, but we work together, we inform them. If they support our efforts, all the better,” Feldhusen said.

Now, it is much more important not to increase the number of Normandy format participants but to receive support from world leaders for the efforts of Germany and Ukraine itself, the German Ambassador to Ukraine added.

To recap, the need to raise the issue of the use of security guarantees defined by the Budapest Memorandum at the international level was the fifth question in the all-Ukrainian poll initiated by President Volodymyr Zelensky and held on 25 October.

The Office of the President noted that, according to the document signed in 1994, the signatory countries gave security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. Moreover, they reaffirm their commitment to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind. However, security guarantees given to Ukraine were violated long before 2014.

Bohdan Marusyak