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Электронное приложение к журналу «
Международная жизнь
»
M. Yevdokimov:
I have been dealing with the European Union for 20 years and I can say a lot
about the Eastern Partnership program.
Regarding Ukraine, I would like to suggest that after all is said and done, the coup in Ukraine
did not result from the signing of the Ukraine-EU association agreement. The agreement was
only a pretext. Regardless of whether the president had or had not signed it, the result would
have been the same. All actions by the West, primarily by the U.S., were aimed at overthrowing
the regime.
The problem of Ukraine's agreement with the EU is not the agreement as such. Talks on the
agreement were absolutely nontransparent. The EU forbade the Ukrainians to show the agree-
ment to us. We first saw it when it was published in the Ukrainian press in English, even without
a translation. It was clear that it is not simply a free trade agreement but an agreement on the
complete transfer of the Ukrainian economy to EU standards.
Audrey Fursov
,
Director of the Institute of System and
Strategy Analysis (ISAN) (Russia):
Very often, there's
wishful thinking behind a lot of what is said during
debates on integration issues.
Today's statements to the effect that we'll now reach
agreements and integrate with each other remind me
of the situations of 1912 and the 1990s. We shouldn't
use the subjunctive mood. We should talk about real
interests and take a broader view. The point is that the
current world system, the capitalist system, is experiencing a systemic crisis. The last such crisis
took place in the period from the middle of the 15th to the middle of the 17th century. If it
seems to someone that those times are far away, they delude themselves. Developments of the
same kind await us in the near future because, in very many respects, the world is entering some-
thing that used to be called the "precapitalist" era. One of the main aspects of its first entry into
such an era was the creation of large political and economic entities.
As for the Chinese vector of Eurasian integration, it has one big minus - let's say not anti-Chinese
sentiments but negative memories of China in Central Asia and other Asian countries. When
we talk about Eurasian integration and wonder whether China can become the engine that re-
verses the situation if it joins forces with Russia, or especially with BRICS, we shouldn't have
any illusions. The point is that, in spite of all its successes, China is the global workshop, the
bottom tier of the world economy. It's not those who work with their hands that call the tune
in the world economy but those who design serious, high-tech goods. For the time being, China
is going to stand in the way of anyone seeking access to that market. To boot, China has the
kind of Achilles' heel today that Russia had in the early 20th century.