Well, most of them, anyway.
Otherwise the prospects of Ukraine’s euroassociators don’t look all that good. Out of all the more than a dozen polls on this question done since December 2015, not a single one has been in Ukraine’s favor. The average gap between the share of people supporting and opposing the Ukraine–European Union Association Agreement has been 15%.
A majority of Dutch political parties have also agreed to treat the result as binding should there be higher than 30% turnout. Apathy is in fact the main hope of the Yes camp. The average expected turnout based on the polls is around 33%.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Klimkin was recently in Amsterdam to agitate for the Yes camp, along with a delegation of the country’s main religious figures.
“In the past two years not a single person has requested a bribe from me!” he introduced himself to Dutch viewers on a talk show, evidently looking to impress. “Before, the Ukraine was a deeply Orthodox country. And the latest anti-discrimination laws… about LGBT rights – you know, you couldn’t have imagined this 5-10 years ago.”
So apparently one of the main achievements of the Euromaidan as related by Klimkin to his progressive Dutch viewers has been that Ukraine has become less Orthodox. I wonder what the rest of his delegation made of that.
Or for that even his main electoral constituents.
An LGBT festival in the Ukrainian city of Lviv had to be abandoned when the venue was surrounded by about 200 members of far-right groups shouting “Kill, kill, kill” on Saturday.
That is not very Yuropean of them either.
EDIT 2016/04/06: Via Ivan Katchanovski: “100% official vote count: 61% vote against Ukraine EU association, and 32% official turnout means valid vote. Exit Poll: 64% “No” vote in the Ukraine EU association referendum in the Netherlands. The 32% turnout in the final IPSOS exit poll reaches the 30% threshold but is close to statistical margin of error of 3%.The 29% turnout rate in the earlier IPSOS exit poll 30 minutes before the end of the vote is close to the 30% threshold and within statistical margin of error of 3%.“
Those talk show quotes look like something straight out of the Onion.
Klimkin just about sums up the schizophrenia of the Maidanist movement.
I don’t see what’s the big deal–let Europe have it. In fact, I would love to observe, pop-corn is ready. As per Ukrainians, hey, they wanted Europe–let them have it too.
Why the Ukrainians would want their country to tie itself to the mess that is the E.U. I don’t understand. So that their cities can be filled up with African children like the one in the picture? So Muslims can come there and do the same horrors they committed in Paris and Brussels? Forget about it…
Is bringing in a delegation of religious figures to impress the Dutch a sign that the Ukrainian leadership is a bit out of touch? Aren’t the Dutch fairly secular these days and look down on religion as an anachronism, particularly those eastern representatives who like to wear those loose fitting black garments? Instead of those men in black bring in some Ukie chicks to do some songs and dances for them; that’ll catch their eye. Never mind fatso Poroshenko and the other turgid leaders, bring in the blondes; that’s what everybody really wants.
No. It’s so that the Ukies can fill up western European cities looking for work.
I don’t understand. Where’s AP, our resident Galician commenter? He’s usually all over any thread about Ukraine–especially those started by Anatoly Karlin!
why have there been no ukrainian refugees in central and western Europe up to day? They probably would be sent back quite soon (non-muslim, non-blacks do not need to apply in the New Europe), but still it is interesting that they don´t even try it. Have they actually realized that western countries are on the way down?
There was a flood of asylum applications when the crisis started by Ukrainians already in Finland (a lot of Ukrainians around here every autumn now, Finnish agribusiness brings them in as seasonal workers). They were put on a fast track to get declined and the word probably spread fast so they stopped trying.
When the government is not crippled by PC opportunistic asylum seeking just gets shut down long before it turns into a deluge.
Why no mention of SS-Division (mot.) Wiking In Ukraine, or the dead Dutch in MH17?
Via Ivan Katchanovski:
Western Europe, core Europe, pretty much created the modern world. It’s natural to want to look up to it, it’s also natural to be defensive and envious about its culture. Russian liberals, like the American kind, promote leftism by saying that it’s European, meaning civilized. They play on the inferiority complex that many Russians (and Americans) have with regard to Western Europe. “Pot and gay marriage are legal in Holland!”, etc.
The Dutch have a lot of admirable traits, but pot and gay marriage are not their cause. They also have some negative traits, like naiveté. They’re suffering from serious problems at this point. In the 21st century (unlike, say, in the 16th or the 19th) aping Dutch politics will actually make a country less civilized. The modern “they do it like that in Europe!” appeal is a cheap lefty trick, a ruse.
Ukrainians, especially West Ukrainians, are even more vulnerable to the Europe! ruse than Russians because their inferiority complex is larger. Western Ukraine is the main hick area of historical Russia. It’s poorer and more backward than eastern Ukraine, Belarus and the ethnically-Russian parts of Russia. In schoolyard jokes and in TV comedies, when Russians want to impersonate yokels, they go for the Ukrainian accent.
Being more European than Russians is a beautiful dream for these people. An unrealistic dream that’s being sold to them by hucksters who hate them. But the world is full of stupidity. It’s like watching fish being reeled in. Except that it’s people and it’s actually a tragedy.
The Europe! appeal is a dangerous thing worldwide. If China is ever destroyed, it would be through it. Why do the Chinese force their kids to learn Western classical music, why do they flock to look at Paris? Because that stuff is genuinely impressive. This opens the door for the same kind of switch: “In Europe the nation state is an outmoded concept. Nobody in Europe believes in race or marriage anymore. All the super-civilized European people think drugs are cool.” Etc.
Hello, Mr. Glossy:
I failed to find this info in English, here is Latvian source (albeit in Russian):
http://baltnews.lv/news/20160313/1015854166.html
Free trade agreement between EU and Ukraine gave very small tariff-free quota
for Ukrainian goods; quota for 2016 is already (in March) filled.
Ukraine is a new market for tariff-free sale of European goods, but not visa versa.
Last year the Polish government issued about 900,000 short
term visas to Ukrainian nationals. The men typically work
in construction and agriculture, the women – in caregiving,
housekeeping, and retail. Many college-age Ukrainians also
come to study at Poland’s universities. In addition, tens of thousand
of Belorussians work in Poland on short-term work permits. They
all send large amounts of money back to their relatives in Ukraine or
Belarus but technically they are not refugees. How many Ukrainians work
in Poland illegally is hard to say, of course, but the fact remains
that there are now over one million Ruthenians (Ukrainians, Belorussians,
and Russians – all Eastern Orthodox) living in Poland more or
less permanently. This is something new in Poland’s postwar
history – it has happened mostly in the last 5 years. To someone
living in Warsaw, the Ukrainian/Russian scraps of conversation
one overhears in the street are a novel phenomenon that it takes
some getting used to. No wonder Poland is reluctant to accept Muslim
migrants – it is already hosting a vast population from the east,
including, by the way, about 10,000 Chechen refugees from Russia.
It is also estimated that about 10,000 Russians are living permanently
in Poland. One of them, Sasha Strunin, the daughter of Russian opera
singers who came to work in Poland, has become quite famous, also
as a singer. Geography is destiny, and after 60 years as a homogeneous
country Poland appears to be returning to the days of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth (though minus Lithuania) as a multicultural, multiconfessional
state that attracts millions of people from its immediate neighborhood,
and is therefore, despite all the doomsayers, not in any danger of population
decline (from its present 40 million).
By the way, some Czechs think that Poland has a brighter future than
Czechia because Poland’s Roma population is tiny compared to Czechia,
Hungary or Romania.
The yellow-and-blue just got blackballed by a member of a club they sold their souls in the hope of joining.
Svidomy Ukrs are having epic meltdowns all over the internets. It’s quite amusing.
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/718028656782614529
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/718028300325552128
This is less about Ukraine then it is about the EU in general. In my country, the Netherlands, the general population (but not the politicians) have been EU-skeptic for a very long time. In 2005 62% of the population voted against the EU constitution for example. People don’t want this aggressive imperialistic expansion of EU in the first place.
Of course it doesn’t help that Ukraine is a failed nation, the second worst nation in Europe after Moldavia and it’s currently in a proxy war with Russia.
Can somebody explain what those African children are doing in Ukraine ? Also are the Ukrainians that dumb to not see how their selling their soul to the EU will end their nation like it did France, Germany, England etc.
I would welcome Ukrainian immigration with open arms. Decent hard working people who make no trouble unlike blacks with chips on their shoulders.
It’s Amsterdam. Like most Western European cities it’s full of third worlders.
Amsterdam voted for the association agreement.
People there want to enrich the Ukraine.
Its full of third worlders.
And that is a terrible thing. And all the more reason to make sure eastern Europe doesn’t make the same horrible mistake.
You must be an employer, rather than a worker or a taxpayer. More workers just lowers the price of labor–or else causes higher unemployment.
No. I am not an employer sir. But my country insists on importing lots of foreigners. So if that is to be the case, I would prefer Ukrainians over a lot of the other groups. I know as a white person, I am not supposed to be allowed to have preferences (my preferences must be “prejudices”) but I do have them.
How about employing your own citizens? I know it sounds strange nowadays, but not too long ago this was a generally accepted practice.
Getting back to Ukraine, I’m actually really surprised by the level of incompetence in this country. I used too think that Albania was the worst Europe could ever get. And here is Ukraine making Albania looking pretty good. How is this possible?
They go to Russia instead. There is a large influx of military-age males from Ukraine into Russia. From Russia’s point of view, the fewer military-age males in Ukraine, the better.
How about employing your own citizens?
I would sir, if I was a business owner. I am just a guy scraping by.