Ukraine: EU is behaving like democratic empire

'The EU is resolving economic problems like a democratic empire,' First Deputy Ukrainian Foreign Minister Alexander Chaly announced at the international conference 'Ukraine in Europe and the World' in Kiev. As Rosbalt was informed by the press office of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, Mr Chaly was speaking about the Ukrainian An-70 military plane, which is technologically superior to other models and is cheaper to produce. However, he said, for political reasons the EU refused to accept the An-70 as the basic model for designing a European military plane, choosing instead to design its own model.

The diplomat also criticized EU visa regulations for Ukraine. He said that after the next wave of EU expansion it will become significantly more difficult for Ukrainians to obtain visas for traveling abroad. He added that the upcoming wave of EU expansion and the uncertainty about when Ukraine itself might be able to join the EU has left the country in a rather hazy and possibly insecure political situation. For example, he said, the guarantees Ukraine received from other nuclear states did not provide any assistance in the crisis when Russia started building a dam from the Taman peninsula to the Tuzla peninsula in Ukraine.