Borys TARASIUK, Director, Institute of Euro-Atlantic Cooperation:
“I think the admission that Ukraine might join the Eurasian Economic Community vis- З -vis the course, proclaimed as long ago as 1995, for Euro- Atlantic integration, including European Union membership, shows that the Ukrainian leadership pursues an inconsistent foreign policy strategy. Obviously, this inconsistency forces both our Western and Eastern, partners to doubt the sincerity of the official Ukrainian foreign policy. This is very troubling, for we have declared a course toward European integration. In my opinion, the desire to join the European Union and NATO should be confirmed by concrete deeds instead of being put into doubt by statements on possible entry into the EAEC.
“The nation’s media play an extremely great role and share an equally great responsibility in this matter. In my opinion, while the central mass media have already formed a certain nucleus of highly qualified journalists who can write adequately about the consequences of Ukraine’s European integration, the regions are, unfortunately, short of journalists capable of covering these problems professionally.”
Sviatoslav PAVLIUK, program coordinator, US-Polish-Ukrainian Cooperation Initiative:
“There are two integration processes now underway in Eurasia: the Moscow-centered CIS process, more effective today than ten years ago, and the EU based on the collective initiative of its member states. In other words, in the case of the CIS, Russia is the motor of integration, while the EU displays a consensus of integration. Ukraine is now in quite a dangerous situation, such that, on the one hand, Russia has never announced it wants to integrate in the EU, and, on the other, Ukraine ostentatiously announces it wants to integrate in the EU but has not lifted a finger to this end over the past decade. Besides, we see how passive the European institutions are. The Agreement on Partnership and Cooperation, signed by Ukraine back in 1994, came into force only in 1998. In other words, it took Europe four years to ratify an actually meaningless document on Ukraine.
“Ukraine has de facto destroyed its stratum of thinking people. De facto, there are very few people capable of creating new ideas. This raises the necessity of attracting to this circle a broader stratum of people, specifically, the students who will be this country’s intellectual elite tomorrow. The mass media must search for the ways to make it possible for their correspondents to work in the West. This issue requires the efforts of both the government and each of us, for society itself has to want this. Hence, the media should be the motor of this integration.”
