BRUSSELS, November 28. /ITAR-TASS/. Ukraine’s decision to delay the signing of the EU association agreement a week ahead of the Eastern Partnership summit that opens today, Thursday, in Vilnius has been in detail examined in the press, by pundits and politicians from Russia, the EU, the US, Ukraine and other countries of the Partnership (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldavia). Most of them considered the problem from the economic point of view — the benefits for Ukraine, the EU and Russia, geopolitically — whether Ukraine will enter the Russian orbit of influence or the EU, or from the perspective of human rights — freedom for Yulia Timoshenko!
However, the key question remained on the sidelines — what does the EU need Ukraine for? Indeed, why had so much attention been riveted to this issue in Europe and why did Ukraine’s decision cause sheer hysteria in the European establishment?
Surely, the reason is not economic. The Ukrainian market is quite a capacious one, but it hardly plays any role for the EU — the country accounts for less than 1.5% of the European export, while imports make up less than 1%. The European Commission’s boldest forecasts suggest the European exports could increase 10-15% over the five years following the signing of the free trade zone deal, that is European export growth on the free trade zone with Ukraine would be 0.15% with a margin of error.