- They've gotten themselves into quite a pickle with their indebtedness. Now, just to keep things in perspective, because they're blown out of perspective everywhere, the association agreement that Ukraine has negotiated for these years, it's an agreement that my country negotiated in the early 90s and signed in June of 1995, almost 20 years ago. It is not EU membership. It is basically a free trade agreement that gives a lot of access to Ukrainian goods to the European market. It's a step forward, but it really is far, far, far short of membership. It took us nine years from when we signed the association agreement until we joined. In between, we had to be assessed as to whether we were good enough to join the EU, and we then had to proceed a negotiating session. So, it's really being blown out of proportion by some of our friends on the Russian side.
- Do you believe that closer ties with Europe would actually help them economically?
- Absolutely. Because the -- bringing rule of law into business. You want contracts to be observed, you want to reduce corruption, which is a very large problem in that country. So, greater transparency, transparency rules, having court systems that can be counted upon to judge equitably. All of those things would make for a much healthier economic environment, and those are things that would come with the European Union and adopting European laws and standards.
