Premier Oekraïne verdedigt tijdens bezoek aan Brussel opnieuw situatie gevangenneming Timosjenko (en)

BRUSSELS - EU-Ukraine diplomacy reached new heights of confusion during a visit by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to Brussels on Tuesday (15 May) and Wednesday.

A few days before he came, EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy had told him on the Euronews TV channel to "stay home." German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a speech to the Bundestag accused his boss, President Viktor Yanukovych, of running a Belarus-type "dictatorship."

But the 62-year-old politician, who started his career in the Soviet coal industry in the times of Nikita Khrushchev, came anyway.

He held at least six meetings in which he repeated the line that Ukraine's jailing of opposition leaders is in the interest of establishing law and order.

Time and again, he saw the line thrown back in his face but went on unfazed.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton told press: "If you have all these international organisations saying that your judicial system is not of the quality it should be then you need to address that."

Socialist MEPs, whose group is - on paper - friends with Azarov's Party of Regions, told him they are "unconvinced" and that Ukraine should free "political prisoners."

Contacts indicate that a three-way meeting with neighbourhood commissioner Stefan Fuele and Danish foreign minister Villy Sovndal at one point saw "serious shouting" and at another point "an awkward five-minute-long silence in which neither side knew what to say each other." But a lunch following the talks was "warm, friendly."

Azarov's EU capital tour ended in an impromptu deal with European Parliament chief Martin Schulz.

The two men - after talks described by Schulz as full of "a mutual trust I didn't expect" - decided that parliament will nominate a group of doctors to monitor the health of jailed former leader Yulia Tymoshenko and a "highly-respected personality" to make sure that her legal appeal is handled fairly.

The deal took everyone by surprise - it was made up on the spot and neither side knows how it will be implemented in practice. One MEP noted that a team of German doctors is already doing the same thing.

Ukrainian diplomats saw Azarov's visit as a personal attempt to end a stalemate which threatens to freeze EU integration for years, or for ever if Russia takes advantage of the opportunity.

But EU institutions are at odds with each other on how to handle Kiev.

Even Ukraine-critical EU diplomats think Van Rompuy went too far in his Euronews insult. Some think that Merkel's jibe was made to win votes after she saw how much positive media coverage German President Joachim Gauck got for boycotting a summit in Yalta.

Ashton earlier on Monday endorsed the European Commission's boycott of the Euro2012 games in Ukraine.

But some of her staff think it is a mistake that will make the EU look silly when it - inevitably - declines to boycott the 2014 winter Olympics in the equally repressive but more powerful Russia.

Meanwhile, one analyst whose work is closely followed by Ashton's advisors Olga Shumylo-Tapiola, an analyst at the Carnegie Europe institute, believes that the Yanukovych clan is a lost cause.

"The most effective step [to make Kiev mend its ways] would be to scrutinise the financial and other assets of The Family and oligarchs that are held in EU countries. Cyprus would be the perfect place to start," she wrote in an op-ed on Monday.

"Or perhaps the best option will be to let Ukraine drift where it drifts. The EU can only help those states that want to be helped - is Ukraine one of them?" she added.