Source: www.elexterior.es

Although for many in EU this may pass unnoticed, something important happened yesterday. Ukraine – former USSR country that was heading into association with EU, just like many other from former socialist block, has rejected to sign the agreement just before the summit. And it’s the first time this has happened ever. While the majority of candidates, like Serbia, are open for almost everything just to make EU closer, Ukraine rejects its entrance. So, what’s happened to EU so countries like Ukraine cannot find enough arguments to enter?

The real fact is that EU is not the same as 15 or 20 years ago and the surpluses they may offer are much less lucrative, comparing with the loss of sovereignty which entering country would experience. If we assess what Ukraine would receive in case of signing the Association Agreement, it’s clearly visible that there’s NO economic nor political benefits for this country. Any.

The first and main reason that pro-European politicians try to show up are the so called "economic benefits" of an open market with EU. But they never give a reason what are these benefits. They never assess, by economic sectors, the impact of such openness. And the true is that almost in every economic sector with production or services of high value the impact would be strongly negative. Ukrainian companies are not strong enough nor have the necessary experience to compete with European ones. Also, and not the least problem, is that these companies don’t have enough financial power to get up to EU standards in very short time. Companies would not be able to adapt and will disappear or acquired by foreign companies. The most dramatic situation would be on high tech segment, where Ukrainian companies will face competition of huge industrial behemoths like EADS and their group of companies. We all remember how Antonov 70 was rejected by European countries in favor of only projected on that time A400 from Airbus. When Ukrainian aircraft was finalized project with flying aircraft and outstanding characteristic and German military was looking to sign an agreement with Ukraine, French counterparts, under pressure of their defense lobby and EADS trade unions banned the agreement because they want EU to have the jointly build A400 machine. And if AN-70 has a chance to survive thanks to Russia, in case of EU agreement signature that chance would disappear. This is only small example, but the same story is valid for each and every segment of economy. If somebody in Ukraine think that EU countries will not guide their politics as per industrial and trade union lobby they should be just optimistic idiots. Actually, the entrance of Ukraine in EU agreement is what that lobbies are looking for since the plan is to destroy or buy any possible competitors before these become competitive enough to make their live hard (think of Russia and Yakut corporation with MC-21 project which will take a stake of A320 Neo and Boeing 737 Nexgen aircrafts)

The other reason to enter into EU agreement is that Ukrainian legislation would be transformed as per EU standards. This one really looks strange, since all EU legislation and standards are "open source", it’s not a copyrighted secret materials. These can be assessed at any time at their legislative portal Europa.eu, so what’s the problem with doing "copy-paste". Should Ukraine give up part of its sovereignty for something that available for free? That’s difficult to understand.

The fact is that Yanukovych, although maybe not due his deep strategic view but due adverse circumstances, has taken the really correct decision of stopping that Agreement. Ukraine has privileged geographical location, in the middle of two worlds – the Slavic world and the Western world. This line, traced by the Catholic and Ortodox churches in the Middle Age is still existent and passes just over Dnepr River. To fully benefit from this, Ukraine should be independent, sovereign country, just like Switzerland, that sits in the middle of Europe. Joining one part – EU, or another – Russian promoted Customs Union, would make half of its population feel unidentified by their government and would bring to zero all the benefits that Ukraine has due to its location.

Source: www.elexterior.es