Tymoshenko 'understands Poland's opposition to Euro 2012 boycotts'

Jacek Protasiewicz: photo Wojciech Kusiński/Polish Radio.

Jacek Protasiewicz met with Yulia Tymoshenko in a penal colony in Kharkiv on Saturday, where she is currently serving a seven-year jail term for “abuse of power” when concluding an energy deal with Russia in 2008, which the court last December said had cost the Ukrainian state millions of dollars.

Polish MEP Protasiewicz told Polish Radio that during his talks with Tymoshenko, she told him that she understood “the Euro 2012 boycott could be considered to be harmful for Ukraine.”

EU officials and politicians from Germany, Austria and other European nations have said they will not attend matches in Ukraine in June if Ukraine's human rights record does not improve.

The EU has questioned whether the Tymoshenko prison sentence is not politically motivated ahead of elections in October in Ukraine.

Poland opposes the boycotts, with President Bronislaw Komorowski calling them “inappropriate”.

MEP Jacek Protasiewicz said that Yulia Tymoshenko expressed her “conditional approval” for a third-party arbitrator to intervene in her case.

“It's an idea that came up in conversation between the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz and Prime Minister of Ukraine Mykola Azarov,” Protasiewicz said.

Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovich, currently in Chicago for the NATO summit, has rejected an idea put forward by Germany for the 51 year-old Tymoshenko to be treated abroad for a chronic back complaint.

Yanukovych told Ukrainian television at the weekend that law prevented Tymoshenko receiving treatment outside of Ukraine during her sentence.

He added that pro-government MPs were firmly against the idea of changing those laws.

Euro 2012 begins on 8 June. (pg)

Audio: Michał Kubicki interviews Jacek Protasiewicz especially for Polish Radio's English Section.