Ukraine shocks European and US leaders
The economic advantage of integration is important, but is not primary. In addition, it is the area for analysts and experts, and their conclusions may swing the public opinion in one or another direction, in particular, if the campaign is consistent and aggressive. Here we come to an important point - a deliberate campaign "for" or "against" the CU participation. It is important that there has been no informational training by the Ukrainian government explaining the need of entering the CU. Not only that, there has been criticism by many high ranking officials, and one of the consistent critics until recently was Valery Khoroshkovsky, first deputy prime minister of the Ukrainian government. It will be extremely difficult to popularize the idea of integration in the information space in a short time. It appears that the West will start a tough informational campaign against the CU. For its part, the pro-Western Ukrainian opposition will act in the same way. It is important that the majority of the so-called Ukrainian expert community has been funded by Western grants for two decades.
The information campaign conducted by Ukrainian analysts looks like this: Information-analytical center "LIGA," headline of December 20th, 2012, "The Customs Union will Ruin the Hryvnia". Expert opinions, pros, and cons were discussed. Naturally, there were nearly no pros and many cons, one of them was in the title. For the sake of as a scientific experiment, this con should be discussed further.
"The process of the hryvnia devaluation may accelerate. Indeed, Ukraine will have to compete with its closest neighbors who will further devalue the currency. Under this scenario, the hryvnia exchange rate could rise to 8.8 and higher," said the president of the Ukrainian Analytical Center Oleksandr Okhrimenko, Suppose this is the way the situation will be developing. But let's look at this issue regardless of the Customs Union. "In 2013, Ukraine will not be able to avoid devaluation of the national currency." (Economic Truth, January 3rd, 2013, article "NBU can lower the rate of the hryvnia to 9.5 to the dollar"). Quote: "In 2013, due to the lack of devaluation adequate to the economic realities, the deficit will continue to grow rapidly. The deepening recession in Europe will lead to a decrease in exports, and half-measures of the Ukrainian government will lead to the loss of the internal market ...
Likely, in early 2013 the Government and the National Bank will release the hryvnia, and the national currency may fall in price by 10-20% (up to 8,8-9,5 hryvnia to the dollar), like in the neighboring countries. In this case, disparities would partially decrease at least for a while." The Customs Union is not mentioned in the context of devaluation at all. This is just a brief illustration of what counter campaign would look like. Currently, the Ukrainian authorities may be tempted to act without consideration of the public opinion. But this would only be easy if they were acting in the interests of the West. Here they would have to work hard for the benefit of the country in terms of the information war represented by the West from the outside, and its agents of influence in the face of the opposition and the Ukrainian "expert community" from the inside. Kiev has no chance of winning this war, and has no one to blame except itself.
P.S. In early August of 2011, several prominent Russian economists and political scientists sent an open letter to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The signatories supported the Kremlin's desire to involve Ukraine in the Customs Union, but criticized the methods by which Moscow planned to achieve this goal. The authors of the letter were convinced that the trade and economic war between Russia and Ukraine would not only fail to yield a positive result, but would have negative consequences for both countries. They suggested giving the Ukrainian authorities more time to promote the CU in the country and engage experts of the two countries.
Alexei Kovalev
Pravda.Ru
