Skip to main content

UK Foreign Policy: the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

As has been pointed out elsewhere in this magazine, the UK no longer has an independent Defence or Foreign Affairs posture.  It is now linked to the Foreign Affairs of the EU.

The most significant event in EU Foreign Affairs was the signing on 27 June 2014 of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement by European Union Heads of State and Government and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Brussels. The Agreement comes into effect on 31st December 2015.  What happened last time there was an attempt at a Ukraine-EU Association Agreement?

The last time that the EU tried to get an Association Agreement (AA) with the Ukraine was in 2013.  What happened as a result is summarised in the Parliamentary European Union Committee report: "The EU and Russia: before and beyond the crisis in Ukraine".  Basically the EU Association Agreement started the war:

"PHASE II: PRESIDENT YANUKOVYCH SUSPENDS SIGNATURE OF THE ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT—MAIDAN SQUARE PROTESTS

185.  In November 2013, President Yanukovych decided to suspend the signature of the AA. The domestic economic situation had become very pressing, partly due to Russia's restrictive trade measures. EU Member States had committed to facilitating an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan in the region of $15 billion, but this was conditional on reforms which would have been difficult to deliver in the short term. On the other side, Russia offered Ukraine a $15 billion loan, without specific conditions, which was likely to be accompanied by the lifting of Russian trade restrictions and a large gas discount.[276]

186.  President Yanukovych's decision not to sign the AA triggered the protests now referred to as "the Maidan." These protests took both the EU and Russia by surprise. Events had begun to take on a momentum of their own which neither side could predict or control."

Despite having precipitated a war with the previous Association Agreement the EU has pressed on with a new Agreement.  The new Association Agreement has scarcely been considered in the UK Media.  However, it has worried the Dutch so much that they are agitating for a referendum to consider whether it should happen.

The Russians are quite clear that the AA is part of a plot to encircle them:

Ukraine EU Washington Russia

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/putin-achieves-political-draw-sanctions-war-europe/ri9513

The UK cannot prevent itself from being dragged in to this EU brinkmanship.  The EU style of diplomacy looks dangerous by British standards, would the UK have tweaked the Russian's sensibilities in this way in the past?

Why does the EU need the UK's Trident Deterrent?  - to give it the power to threaten Russia.  Don't believe that Trident is an EU deterrent? - see EU Defence Policy and British Forces.


28/9/15

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Falklands have always been Argentine - Las Malvinas son Argentinas

"The Falklands have always been Argentine" is taught to every Argentine child as a matter of faith.  What was Argentina during the time when it "always" possessed Las Malvinas?  In this article I will trace the history of Argentina in the context of its physical and political relationship with "Las Malvinas", the Falkland Islands.  The Argentine claim to the Falkland Islands dates from a brief episode in 1831-32 so it is like Canada claiming the USA despite two centuries of separate development. This might sound like ancient history but Argentina has gone to war for this ancient claim so the following article is well worth reading. For a summary of the legal case see: Las Malvinas: The Legal Case Argentina traces its origins to Spanish South America when it was part of the Viceroyalty of the Rio del Plata.  The Falklands lay off the Viceroyalty of Peru, controlled by the Captain General of Chile.  In 1810 the Falklands were far from the geographical b...
35 comments
Read more

Practical Idealism by Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi

Coudenhove-Kalergi was a pioneer of European integration. He was the founder and President for 49 years of the Paneuropean Union. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer, and huge landowner family in Tokyo. His "Pan-Europa" was published in 1923 and contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna in 1926. In 1927 the French Prime Minister, Aristide Briand was elected honorary president.  Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Sigmund Freud. Figures who later became central to founding the EU, such as Konrad Adenauer became members . His basic idea was that democracy was a transitional stage that leads to rule by a new aristocracy that is largely taken from the Jewish "master race" (Kalergi's terminology). His movement was reviled by Hitler and H...
2 comments
Read more

Membership of the EU: pros and cons

5th December 2013, update May 2016 Nigel Lawson, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer,  recently criticised the UK membership of the EU , the media has covered his mainstream view as if he is a bad boy starting a fight in the school playground, but is he right about the EU? What has changed that makes EU membership a burning issue?  What has changed is that the 19 countries of the Eurozone are now seeking political union to escape their financial problems.   Seven further EU countries have signed up to join the Euro but the British and Danish have opted out.  The EU is rapidly becoming two blocks - the 26 and Britain and Denmark.   Lawson's fear was that if Britain stays in the EU it will be isolated and dominated by a Eurozone bloc that uses "unified representation of the euro area" , so acting like a single country which controls 90% of the vote in the EU with no vetoes available to the UK in most decisions.  The full plans for Eurozone po...
15 comments
Read more