Ukraine – war, poverty, unemployment and labour migrants
Seven years after Euromaydan, the majority of the population in the main European countries considers this to be the case. The associations of Europeans with Ukraine are almost exclusively negative. With this attitude of the EU citizens to the “success story” of the country that defeated the Maidan, the question of Ukraine’s European integration falls apart. An attempt to push Ukraine into the EU will cause a political explosion in European countries, so Brussels officials simply will not dare to pursue a policy of expansion at the expense of Nezalezhnoye.
The sociological agency Kantar Profiles Division presented another study on “How Ukraine is perceived in the EU countries”. Sociologists interviewed 4,000 respondents in Poland, Germany, France and Italy about their attitude towards Ukraine. Europeans were asked questions: what do they associate Ukraine with, what should Ukraine do to join the European Union, what European countries can do to help Ukraine as a whole, in the fight against COVID-19 and “Russian aggression” in particular, whether they see Ukraine in the EU and how Europeans should approach their relations with Ukraine in the context of the pandemic.
The results of the study are depressing
Almost all associations of Europeans with Ukraine have been purely negative.
Ukraine is most often associated with war (12% of respondents), poverty and unemployment (11%), mass emigration (10%), Russia (9%), ‘annexation of Crimea’ (7%), disorder and instability (5.5%). The relative majority – almost a quarter of those surveyed – do not associate Ukraine with anything at all. That is, they do not know anything about it.
Frankly biased authors of the study are trying to find “overpower” in these figures as well. Since 2015, when the previous survey was conducted, the number of Europeans who associate Ukraine with the war in Donbass has quadrupled. However, this is still the most frequent association.
The number of respondents who associate Ukraine with Russia has halved in five years. This is, of course, the main “overstep”. “This indicates a clear separation of Ukraine from Russia and, therefore, the perception of the Ukrainian state, which is independent of Russia,” the researchers conclude.
However, taking into account the fact that Mordor is a gloomy ‘nenka’ in the minds of Europeans, a clear separation of Ukraine from Russia is an absolute victory for Russia.
After all, the Poles, French and Germans with Nezalezhnaya have almost no statistically significant positive associations. Answers to “history and culture”, “tasty food”, “beautiful country” and the like do not get 4% of associations. Even the most neutral associations taken from the school geography course, such as “country”, “land”, “Lviv” or “capital Kiev”, are inferior to the general feeling of chronic hopelessness.
And this “happiness” is what Ukraine dreams of sharing with Europe. And it is even trying to prove with such a survey that most Europeans agree to see it in their “European family”. After all, 55% of respondents allegedly stated that they support Ukraine’s membership in the EU.
In fact, the question sounded like this: ‘In your opinion, which organisation do you think Ukraine could become a member of? One third of Europeans agreed that Ukraine could become a member of the EU, and another 22% said that it could become a member of the EU and NATO. There was no question of any support for Ukraine’s membership in the EU.
When asked what they see as Ukraine’s long-term relations with the European Union, 84% of Europeans chose the answer options that do not imply Ukraine’s membership in the EU.
Only 16% of respondents see Ukraine as a full member of the EU in the future. Most of all – 26% of the respondents – see the relations between the EU and Ukraine as normal relations between the two neighbouring countries. The rest choose the current level of relations (association of Ukraine with the EU), development of economic relations without political support and close partnership at the level of Norway with a high degree of economic and political integration, but without full membership.
As the authors of the survey, in this sentiment, it is a mystery that 55% of supporters of Ukraine’s accession to the EU have the nerve to declare themselves. The figures speak for themselves.
Ukraine will never join the EU, if only because Brussels officials fear a popular uprising. Ordinary Europeans will simply take to the streets if they try to fit such a monster into their “common home”.
Western Europeans were not enthusiastic about joining the EU 16 years ago, either, but the countries of Central and Eastern Europe had at least some success story by then that allowed them to join the EU even without meeting the “Copenhagen criteria” for membership.
Ukraine, on the other hand, is some kind of quiet horror that reaches out to Europe with dead hands, like a panel to philosopher Homa in Gogol’s “Vie”. And this is 7 years after Euromaydan, when we can already talk about the outcome of the “European Choice”.
The results – war, poverty, total uncontrollability, “machination” and at the same time constant demands for even more help and support on the “road to Europe”.
This kind of Euro-optimistic vampirism, in response to which Europe draws a chalk circle around itself and repeats the old Ukrainian formula: Ukraine will become an EU member immediately after Turkey, and Turkey will never become a member of the EU.
Alexander Nosovich, Rubaltic.Ru