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‘Steinmeier formula’ needs to be confirmed before Normandy Four summit — Ukrainian MP

According to the senator, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s position on the matter remains unclear amid contradictory statements from Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko

KIEV, September 19. /TASS/. The so-called "Steinmeier formula" needs to be confirmed and a disengagement of forces needs to take place in Donbass before a Normandy Four summit can be held, Chairman of the Political Council of Ukraine’s ‘Opposition Platform - For Life’ party Viktor Medvedchuk told reporters on Thursday.

He pointed out that the aides to the leaders of the Normandy Four countries — Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine — had agreed that the formula must be put on paper before the next summit. However, in Medvedchuk’s words, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s position on the matter remains unclear amid contradictory statements from Foreign Minister Vadim Pristaiko, while head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Minsk talks Leonid Kuchma put forward a number of conditions at Wednesday’s meeting, "some of which are contrary to the Minsk Agreements."

Moreover, the Kiev authorities are silent about certain provisions of the Minsk Accords, particularly those stipulating that Donbass should be provided with special status permanently, which will require changes in the country’s constitution. According to Medvedchuk, it seems that Kiev has no plans to do it, which is why Moscow insists that a Normandy Four summit be held only if certain conditions are met.

In this regard, Medvedchuk highlighted the need to ensure the disengagement of forces along the line of contact near the Zolotoye and Petrovskoye settlements, sign the "Steinmeier formula" and draft decisions that would be endorsed at the Normandy Four summit.

On Wednesday, Kiev’s representatives refused to sign the "Steinmeier formula" at a Minsk meeting of the Contact Group on resolving the situation in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Contact Group Boris Gryzlov said following the meeting that Kiev had actually refused to agree on the process of granting special status to Donbass. The Russian envoy pointed out that Ukraine had, in fact, disrupted the disengagement of forces near the Petrovskoye and Zolotoye settlements since "security steps need to be synchronized with political ones," and put plans to hold a Normandy Four summit at risk of failure.

Steinmeier formula

In late 2015, the then German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier put forward a plan that later became known as the "Steinmeier formula." The plan stipulates that special status be granted to Donbass in accordance with the Minsk Agreements. In particular, the document envisages that Ukraine’s special law on local self-governance will take effect in certain areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on a temporary basis on the day of local elections, becoming permanent after the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) issues a report on the vote’s results.