Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Ukraine, Russia Ratify Post-Soviet Economic Union

Created: 21.04.2004 11:21 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:41 MSK, 8 hours 10 minutes ago

Again, we may be watching the resurgence of a new more liberal Soviet style coalition complete with a rule-from-the-center economic approach under Russia. -Am


MosNews



Russia and Ukraine ratified membership of an economic union on Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reports. The move came despite protests in Ukraine where the opposition says the deal is an attempt by Moscow to reassert its former imperial power.

The union, creating a common tax code and a customs union ending trade tariffs, is also intended to include Belarus and Kazakhstan, which have yet to ratify the arrangements.

In the Ukrainian parliament, the opposition boycotted the vote but ratification still passed easily; 265 lawmakers in the 450-seat chamber voting in favour.

In the Russian Duma, where President Vladimir Putin’s supporters have a big majority of the 450 seats, support was overwhelming; 408 voted in favour.

The plan was signed by the presidents of the four former Soviet republics last year. Kazakhstan will vote on Wednesday. Belarus says its parliament, which rarely contradicts President Alexander Lukashenko, plans to consider approval soon.

The four have a combined population of about 225 million —- nearly 150 million of them in Russia and 50 million in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials said the union was key to sustaining economic growth once the European Union expands to Ukraine’s western borders on May 1, raising new barriers to its exports.

“The main aim of a common economic space is to make Ukraine’s economy more competitive,” Finance Minister Mykola Azarov said as he presented the document.

The opposition criticised the document as an attempt to weaken the independence Ukraine won from Moscow in 1991.

“We are betraying the Ukrainian people,” Oleh Tyagnybok, a member of parliament from the opposition party Our Ukraine, said. “Russia, whether it was under the tsars or under the soviets, has always tried to suppress Ukraine.”

About 3,000 people rallied outside parliament during the vote, waving Ukraine’s blue and yellow flag and nationalist banners reading “No to Union, No to the Return of the USSR”.

The neighbours have a long history of rivalry.

In Moscow, opposition Communists and the Motherland faction staged a walkout after ratification when the Duma voted to ratify two border agreements with Ukraine. They accused Kiev of discriminating against Ukraine’s millions of Russian speakers.

There have been several attempts to form economic unions among former Soviet states struggling to boost their economies and win new markets after a regional financial crisis in 1998. Significant results, however, are hard to discern.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2004/04/21/ukraine.shtml