Can Ukraine Join The EU AND Russia's Commonwealth?

For MY part, I 'd never say such a thing!
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I know you wouldn't.

Quote Izzy:

And where did I do that? Since the EU had made some sort of offer to Ukraine already, as you would expect, I would think they would continue to want to unite the EU. Nobody's telling you that you have to do anything- just asking if Ukraine would be able to join the EU if it gets drawn into Russia's Commonwealth. Read the damn post before you go off.


Quote Izzy:

And similarly, British workers have free access to France, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Greece, Malta, Austria, Switzerland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Ireland and Bulgaria. Just like you signed up for.

More assumptions, based on nothing.



We signed up for a common market. Nobody voted in a referendum to allow a load of Eastern Europeans unfettered access to the UK. Poland was part of the Warsaw Pact at the time.

What you fail to comprehend is that countries with similar economic lifestyles like the UK and Denmark don't feel a need to move en masse to another country. That's what happens with income disparity, like Mexico and the US. Even without immigration the money flows West to East. The Ukraine is going to get a lot of EU money as it is. If they join it will cost even more. There has to be a limit.

Why not practice what you preach and lobby your government to give all Ukrainians American citizenship if they so desire it, just like you do with Cuba. Unlike us, you've got plenty of room. If not, keep your hypocritical nose out of our affairs.

Nobody told the EU that they had to let Ukraine in. So stop saying anybody's doing that. We expected the EU would want to unite Europe, because that it it's reason for existence and that is the way EU supporters were talking. So it's not based on nothing. If you object to the part where Europeans are free to look for a job in your country, you should have said so at the time. The US didn't put that part in, Europe did. The rules appear to say they can only collect unemployment for 3 months, so I don't think they're in the UK long unless they connect up. At any rate, the EU offered the deal and you took it, don't blame us.

The thread is about, or was about, whether Ukraine would be able to join the EU if Russia forced them into their little Commonwealth, not about the problems the UK has with immigration. Go start your own thread about "Screw the EU, we're up to our neck in Poles" if that's what you want to post about.

You expect us to behave in a particular way. And when we tell you that's not going to happen you take umbrage, because your assumptions are wrong. You are only just starting to learn some of the realities of EU membership.



And when the only citizen of the EU on this thread tells you it won't happen, you won't have it. You want to assume away with no basis in reality whatsoever. You clearly want to live in a fantasy world, because reality is just too upsetting.



I support the EU, why would I want to do that? You're the one advocating over rapid expansion that would bankrupt us.

In 1972 people were for a free trading within a few countries in Europe. and not a united Europe as it is now.
In Denmark 63% voted yes to free trading and today many wish they had not said yes.
In Norway 53% voted no.
At that time there were 6 counties in the free trading zone and in 1973 three more came and then there were 9.
Now there are 28 memberstates in EU and it is in many areas a real mess.
Not even the Scandinavian countries have been able to unite even if has been talked about. Even they are too different.
Long before the rules about open borders people still could travel without visas and study abroad. It is nothing new - people have always moved around in Europe.
On the contrary to Izzy I am against EU and always was - as I knew that the Nordic Idea about the nordic countries should unite never worked out - it was a dream for about 100 - 150 years. If three little countries cannot how should a continent succeed?

I think we're closer than Blickers though, because we know what's happening.

Even though we disagree, I respect your opinion because it is an informed opinion, and not a load of baseless assumptions.

" We expected the EU would want to unite Europe, because that it it's reason for existence and that is the way EU supporters were talking...."

Not true. The EU is basically a trading bloc within Europe. Countries originally came together with a view to creating a free trading zone with each other.
The one and only referendum that British people had on whether to join, was sold to us as simply a free trade market. It was actually called (in Britain at least) 'The Common Market' for years, and only in relatively recent times has it been reborn as 'The European Union'.

Like Saab, I have always been against federalisation of the EU, and could see the absolute folly of the Euro currency well before it was launched.
One cannot have a viable currency out there on the world market when :

a) Strict economic criteria are not met by applicants to this currency, yet the rules are nevertheless bent to allow their entry anyway (think Greece, Italy, Portugal and even France)

and b) There is no central tax, welfare and pensions regime in operation. With some countries paying high rates of income tax, VAT and other excise, and others seemingly able to avoid paying a penny in tax, whilst running up massive debt, how could a single currency work?

The other, main objection I have is that with an overarching level of European Bureaucracy added on to the top of member state parliaments, proper democracy, in my view, has suffered greatly.
Consequently, many of the people in power in Brussels have not gone through the proper democratic process to get there.
Picking on one of my own officials just to illustrate the point, just look up the career of Baroness Ashton, the woman who is right at the coal face of the current Ukraine crisis.
Hailed as one of the world leaders, just try to find one occasion in her profile where she was actually elected by 'Joe Public'.
This lady may be pleasant company and possibly very good at what she does.....but never has she had to be subjected to a public vote.

Many, many top brass within Brussels are in position purely because other people who were already in a top brass position of their own, nominated the newcomer to be quietly given a position.
All very cosy, and all very incestuous, a good part of the time.

As a consequence of this overarching rule from Brussels (where the cosy club is located), member countries have less and less say over the day to day running of their own countries. Our fully elected Parliament in the UK can try to pass a law one day, and Brussels, technically, can turn around and say that we can't, as it goes against one of their Brussels diktats.
Basically, we are to all extents and purposes, subject to rule from Brussels.

It's a bit like the US Government having a team of powerful people nominated, to sit above them and tell them what they can do. Maybe a simplistic example, but not far from the truth.
How long would the American people stand for that?

As far as the EU being the place to welcome every other European country with open arms is concerned, Izzy is correct. I have nothing to add to that.

What Ukraine was being offered was a trade agreement, nothing more. When you listen to the pro Russian Crimeans being interviewed on TV, nearly every other word coming out of their mouths is either fascist or nazi, so you can get a reasonably good idea of modern day Russian mentality from that.
They are basically still stuck in cold war mode.

With that in mind, you can see how Putin and his buddies either thought the same way, and baulked at the idea of Ukraine turning towards the fascists, or, more likely, used this mentality to their advantage and fed into it to cause major internal unrest, with the full intention to get Crimea back, and possibly more.

Back in 1997 I spoke to a historian friend of mine who told me it was doomed to failure. Charlemagne tried it, and it didn't work, the currency in the North started to be worth more than that in the South. That's pretty much what's happening now as the North keeps bailing out the South.

Between 1982 and 2001 Switzerland took most asylum seekers and foreign workers in Europe per capita and now have 25% foreigners.
Sweden comes as number two with now 17,9% foreigners per capita.
What stupid are concerned EU has a law regarding plowing your land. In the alps your are not supposed to plow in the fall. I guess it has to do with landslade.
The same law is now in Denmark!!
What about these laws?
Straight cucumbers
Apples must weigh 90 gramms
Honey has to be messured regarding its Electrical resistivity and conductivity
One size slacks
Regulation of pizza recepies and recommendation that a pizua should be eaten as soon as possible after taken out of the owen
A pacifer for babies - there is rules and regulations 52 pages and 8 chapters about that.
Bosses have to tell their workers about the risks regading sunlight
Teebags cannot be thrown intto the garbage
According a Danish paper Eurocrates get money back when buying Viagra.
And last in connection with Viagra - the size of condoms is regulated.
Some yeats ago EU had a law about one size condoms - had to get rid of it again.

A lot of the flooding in the UK has been blamed on EU directives not to dredge rivers to encourage wildfowl.

I read some place that Thames was not dredged, in case a rare mollusc was disturbed. No idea where these mussels live,

I remember reading an article when the Euro project was first cooked up. The economist who wrote it clearly explained that it would never work without a single, federal unification of taxes. Without it, there would be disaster, as weaker economies would not be able to lower their currency on the market anymore, which was always the tried and trusted way of keeping them ticking over in the past.
Spain has a bad time? The peseta drops, Spanish holidays suddenly seem cheap, as do their exports, money starts flowing into Spain. Simple as that.
Many moons ago here on A2K, I used to get in to really heated debates/arguments here (with Nimh, mainly) but could never change a pro euro person's mind on the matter.
Now, possibly ten years later, there are not many old pro euro people around who still think the same way.
A controversial theory going around (to which I subscribe) is that the Euro was greatly encouraged into being by Germany, by far the biggest manufacturer of goods within the EU.
If surrounding EU countries took up the euro, then exchange rates would be stable and Germany could pretty well guarantee a nice steady trade exporting goods to those very same surrounding neighbours.
Without the euro, the aforementioned Spain example with a weak peseta would put at risk Germany's exports to Spain whilst their currency was weak.
Factor in the other slightly volatile currencies (lire, drachma, escudo) and suddenly you can see why a stable, boring euro was very attractive to bosch, bmw, mercedes, siemens etc.
Trouble was though, that they allowed all the naughty boys into the currency club, alongside the ones who would behave themselves.

Now that the euro fisaco has basically broken Spain and Greece, and appears to have its chickens coming home to roost, is it any wonder that Germany has turned towards increasing trade with Russia in recent times?
A sort of "well, our euro neighbours are now well snd truly skint....who are we going to sell our stuff to now" dilemma.

I was very sceptical to the Euro, because Scandinavia had once a
Scandinavian Monetary Union , which lasted 40 years in countries which are rather similar. When a Union lasted 40 years in those days when things went slower I gave the Euro about 10 years.
It was a monetary union formed by Denmark and Sweden on 5 May 1873, by fixing their currencies against gold at par to each other. Norway, which was in union with Sweden, however with full inner autonomy, entered the union two years later, in 1875, The monetary union was one of the few tangible results of the Scandinavian political movement of the 19th century.

All three countries still use the same currencies as during the monetary union, but they lost their peg, one to one, in 1914.

As Crimea is 60% Russian speaking, and given Ukraine activists were rioting to rid the country of an elected leader, Maybe Putin ceased an opportunity not to miss, as Crimea was given away in a "moment of madnes"s by Khruschev in 1954, maybe Russia are justified, probably more justified than the west's foolish incursions in the middle east, with countless thousands of lives lost and total defeat. In answer to the question I doubt Ukraine could do both.