Lithuanian EU presidency was actively pushing Ukraine’s bid for EU integration, despite the bloc’s inability to sustain another collapsing state, financial expert Patrick Young told RT, adding that the next EU president couldn’t care less about Ukraine.
RT:President Putin has said the EU's "blackmailing"
Ukraine over the trade pact suspension – if true, why would it do
this?
Patrick Young: Well, it has to be said that overall the
European Union has been very keen to see Ukraine indulge in a lot
of political and liberalizing measures that happen to suit the
viewpoints of large number of EU politicians, for example, this
whole ongoing issue of jailing of the opposition leader Mrs.
Tymoshenko. The rights and wrongs of that are buried somewhere in
the Ukrainian court records, but as far as the EU are concerned
they wanted to see her freed. Therefore there has been a very
significant political pressure coming from the EU overtime, while
Russia has noted the fact that overall a vast amount of trade
with Ukraine is already done with Russia.
RT:Why does Europe even need another partner which is on
the verge of bankruptcy?
PY: Well here we have of course the peccadillos of the
European Union. Remember the EU is an organization that seems to
have almost as many presidents as it has storm troopers. At the
moment that national presidency that is the presidency held every
six months by a country is Lithuania. What is Lithuania most
interested in? Clearly they are deeply concerned about what is
going on, on a general political basis, in the Baltics and
thereabouts, their neighbour Russia in Kaliningrad, they are
obviously incredibly close and neighbour to Ukraine at the same
point in time; therefore, they are deeply concerned about their
sphere of influence. This has been frankly a vanity project of
the Lithuanian presidency which was never going to be carried
through, because from January next year we are going to see the
presidency being taken over by Greece. Greece with all of their
economic woes, have they even heard of the Ukrainian economy?
Probably not.
RT:Despite the problems going on in the EU economy,
many Ukrainians do see eventually joining the EU. Are there many
benefits for ordinary Ukrainians?
PY: Oh look, there are many benefits to be had from the
EU, the ability to travel safely, securely in the Schengen
passport zone over multiple borders. The opportunity to be part
of an absolutely huge trade zone. It is a fantastic idea. But the
problem we really have is that already the EU model has been
deeply compromised by the addition of countries that weren’t
ready such as Bulgaria and Romania.
The EU itself really has to concentrate on its own internal
economic problems. Ukrainians should absolutely look towards the
idea of being an open, capitalist, competitive economy in order
to deliver the sort of prosperity that people are currently
lacking. But the difficulty is you can’t enter into a free trade
zone when one party is effectively hopping around indebted, with
arms tied around their back, and the other is a huge economic
power house centered around Germany.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.