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Old 05-06-2004, 18:54   #12
haku haku is offline
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Join Date: May 2003
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Ukraine is with Russia and Belarus one of the founding members of the CIS and has been an active member since its beginning, i think it shows clearly that Ukraine sees its future with Russia and not the EU. When the CIS was founded after the collapse of the USSR, the Baltic states refused to join, they made clear statements at the time that their goal was to join the EU in the future and therefore it made no sense for them to join the CIS, they even asked Russia to withdraw completely their military forces from their territories. And the Baltic states did not only made statements, they acted. Following the example of former communist countries in central Europe, they engaged profound political and economic reforms which allowed them to meet EU standards in 10 years!
Ukraine did no such thing. As far as i know Ukraine's economy is still very Soviet like, entire sectors of the economy are still state managed. Very little reforms have been engaged and they don't seem very eager to accelerate the process.

And yes, i've read the article posted by staringelf and some of those quotes are incredible, and not in a good way. First, insulting the EU commission by saying "the EU commission has been put in its place" is not going to help them. Those journalists have to stop making a relation between winning the Eurovison and joining the EU! There is no relation whatsoever, winning a tacky song contest does not make you economically and politically ready to join the EU.
Second, what's scary there is that they seem to *demand* to join the EU *now*, and they don't seem to realize at all the huge amount of work they have to do before being even close to EU standards. They should focus a little more on reforming their economy instead of going crazy for "Wild Dances" thinking that it's going to solve all their problems.
Whether they like it or not, Ukraine is in no shape or form ready to join the EU, and it won't be the case anytime soon.

Let's throw in just a few numbers here, the raw GDPs (Gross Domestic Product) per inhabitant of the 15 EU member states before the enlargement:
Austria $25,432 - Belgium $23,981 - Denmark $31,852 - Finland $25,385 - France $24,037 - Germany $24,209 - Greece $12,202 - Ireland $32,105 - Italy $20,554 - Luxembourg $45,778 - Netherlands $26,250 - Portugal $12,200 - Spain $16,457 - Sweden $26,966 - UK $25,950

Average for EU 15: $24,890

Raw GDPs of new EU member states:
Cyprus: $13,289 - Czech R: $6,806 - Estonia: $4,336 - Hungary: $6,400 - Latvia: $3,500 - Lithuania: $3,432 - Malta: $10,051 - Poland: $4,896 - Slovakia: $4,389 - Slovenia: $10,600

Average for new EU member states: $6,769
Average for EU 25: $17,642

Now, talking only of the former communist countries, we can see that Slovenia already has a GDP comparable to some older EU members, the Czech R. and Hungary are around $6,500 and are progressing very well, the five others are between $3,500 and 5,000 which is quite low but again their economic stats are encouraging. All those new members have a high growth rate and i am confident that most of those countries will reach a $15,000 per inhabitant GDP in the next 10 years, even faster for countries that are doing well like Slovenia, the Czech R and Hungary.
Those countries did what had to be done to be ready to join the EU, and after another decade of help from the older 15 members, they will have filled the gap and will be fully participating to the wealth and growth of the whole EU.

Ukraine is another story, its current raw GDP per inhabitant is of $843, that's 4 times smaller than the lowest GDPs among the new members! 20 times smaller than the average of the EU! It's simply impossible to admit such a country in the EU. The EU is rich, but the balance between the richer members and the less rich members has to be "reasonable", there has to be enough rich members to help the less rich. The EU just admitted 10 new members that will have to double or triple their GDPs to fill the gap with the older members, it's going to take some time to "digest" that enlargement.
But like i said, i'm confident that it's going to go well because those new members have the will and they have made the necessary reforms to meet that goal.
I haven't seen any such thing from Ukraine, that, plus their choice of participating in the CIS, is why i don't believe Ukraine should join the EU. And BTW, Ukraine has not even applied to join the EU! They haven't even made an official statement to the EU that they intend to do so. (Only Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and Turkey have officially applied to this day.)
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Patrick | TatySite.net t.E.A.m. [ shortdickman@free.fr ]

Last edited by haku; 05-06-2004 at 23:19. Reason: to correct numbers
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