Inside News on Odessa and Ukraine
I was pondering a blog entry on how the EU will deal with the next Ukrainian political term given the less than ideal way it was run and eventually concluded. The answer it seems has been given before I thought too deeply about strategies, causal effects, lines of communications both overt and subtle and to […]
The new head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine, (Ambassador for want of a better analogy), Jan Tombinski, seems to be doing his very best to pour oil on the somewhat choppy waters between Ukraine and the EU in efforts to smooth matters between the two sides to some degree. He recently gave a press […]
Regular readers of this blog will recall a post I wrote not so long ago relating to the Russian led Customs Union and the Vietnamese accession talks due to begin as early as September this year. Well, a week or so ago, Ukraine did indeed ratify a free trade agreement with the Customs Union. As […]
I have written very often about the DCFTA (and attached AA) agreements that are now agreed between the EU and Ukraine, even if not signed and ratified for the foreseeable future. Far less frequently have I written about the Russian led Customs Union. This is because, thus far, despite the offer of a $9 billion […]
Whilst almost everyone would be forgiven for thinking that the EU-Ukrainian DCFTA agreement has either already been initialed and dealt with some time ago, or that it has simply ground to a halt over EU concerns regarding selective prosecutions and shabby trial procedures, naturally they would be wrong. Such incredibly complicated agreements, even when initialed […]
There are times in this blog where government policy and action are recognised as being good, there are times in this blog where government policy and action are recognised as being bad, both are usually accompanied by a recognition of completely and utterly ineffective implementation making no real changes despite what it says on paper. […]
It’s been a long time since I mentioned the IMF and Ukraine. Basically because it is has been a long time since the IMF lent any money to Ukraine. More than 12 months in fact. The reason being Ukraine’s reluctance to put up gas prices again for domestic and commercial users. Now, you can understand […]
Well, happy New Year to you all. Welcome to 2012 and I hope it will be a year that brings you all good health and happiness. What has 2012 got install for Ukraine in 2012? Well to quote Donald Rumsfeld, “We know there are known knowns: there are things we know we know. We also […]
On the evening of the EU/Ukraine summit which has been consistently billed with more expectations than were ever possible since events relating to Ms Tymoshenko charged the dynamics of the EU/Ukrainian relationship, I was not in the slightest bit keen to discover the outcome in a timely way. In fact I went out to dinner […]