Ukraine to get visa-free travel, free trade zone with EU in a year

[pampango]

Source: KyivPost

President of Ukraine Victor Yanukovych believes that Ukraine will enjoy visa-free regime and free trade zone with the EU no later than in a year.

The head of state said this in an exclusive interview with the BBC Ukrainian service in Brussels.

Asked about the possibility of Ukraine's getting an associate membership, visa-free regime and forming a free trade zone with the EU, Yanukovych said: "We have agreed that we will settle this issue within a year, and a joint decision, joint implementation of this decision will lead us to the goal we have set. We will get a visa-free regime and a free trade zone with the European Union no later than in a year."

When asked to comment on the European Parliament's resolution securing Ukraine's right to apply for EU membership, the president said: "I believe that Ukraine should come a long way of reforms, and only then we will see the timeframes when it may happen. Today we have received a signal, which gives us a great hope. And now we have to be working hard. "

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/nation/detail/60783/

[Lasher]

1. What a change this would be for Ukrainians!

Imagine what that would be like for people who have lived there since the USSR controlled them.

[pipoman]

2. If only the US were so

bright as to require reform and conform before membership and participation in 'free trade' agreements.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Blimey

Yet another holiday destination for us Europeans.

[pampango]

4. Or maybe a few Ukrainian tourists in your neck of the woods.

:)

[dipsydoodle]

5. I'm not sure

there was any problem in them coming here with a visa anyway - nosound reason there should be. They'd just blend in with the Poles and East Europeans etc and I doubt they'd be noticed as being anything other than routine tourists maybe a little bit short on english. It's mainly the girls I get to know and they come from here there and everywhere - swing dancers mainly.

:hi:

[izquierdista]

6. Destination?

If you like roughing it. Aside from a few hotels built during the Soviet era (one per major big city), there is no tourist infrastructure. The trains average 40km/hr on long hauls, there is usually only one train per day, and buses are not much faster. The people are too poor to eat out, so there are few restaurants, just markets where you can buy beer and cold cuts. There are third world countries that can earn some foreign exchange by having some nice resorts where westerners can spend their money -- Ukraine isn't one of them.

[Rapier09]

7. Greece had nice resorts

Countries build on tourism aren't all that stable.

Ukraine is fine.

[Hardrada]

8. How about fast food places? Pizza joints?

We don't dine elegantly.

[izquierdista]

11. No fast food

Except in Kiev and Odessa, you won't see McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc. I'm trying to tell you, people are poor there; they can't afford to pay someone else to prepare food for them. If you are a rich Ukrainian, every now and then you can splurge and buy some chebureki (a meat and onion filled deep fried turnover). Many times when I was traveling and couldn't find a place that prepared food, I would just do like the locals and buy some food at the market and improvise.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Actually, tourism will be pretty important for Ukraine

For a start, they're co-hosting the 2012 European Football Championships with Poland (another good reason for keeping relations with the EU smooth), and they have plenty of tourist resorts in the Crimea - eg where the KGB may have tried to recruit the current leader of the British Tory party.

[izquierdista]

12. Even Crimea has sparse facilities

Except for the beach resorts around Yalta, Crimea does not have "plenty" of resorts. The restaurant district of Dzhankoy consists of two places that have maybe 5 tables between them. There are buildings in Kerch and Feodosia that say hotel on the outside, but haven't seen any maintenance on the inside since Gorbachev was in charge. The tourism sector is like other sectors of the economy; a run-down remnant of Soviet days that may or may not be functioning.

They are in a difficult spot. Corruption quickly drains the capital out of any entrepreneurial project. If you want to learn how little you need to survive on, live there a few months and you will find out.

[demorcat]

13. Ukraine - a beautiful tourist-country.

izquierdista, you're lying. Ukraine has thousands of hotels! Five-star hotels, of course, not available in every village, but Kiev has about a dozen of them. Prices from 300-400 € (Hyatt 5*).
40 km/hr - it is only intra-urban train. Intercity trains travel at speeds of 80-100 km/hr. Ukraine has a lot of different resorts - from the Carpathians to Crimea. But do not look for them in industrial areas.
Incidentally, in Ukraine, about 70 McDonald in 20 cities!
mcdonalds.ua/index.html?he_id=330
and rich citizens do not eat chebureks.)) Rich eat at home, because it is the ukrainian tradition.
district of Dzhankoy - a bad place for restaurants, it is sparsely populated steppe north of Crimea. Just have to know where to rest or have a guide.

[robcon]

10. Great News!!!

Free trade is the best answer - for economic growth and world peace.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

16. Only if accompanied by the free movement of people like in this case. -nt

[martymar64]

14. Watch the Ukrainians leave in droves for places with jobs

They'll be in every corner of the EU now, pissing off the locals by taking the unskilled work from the unskilled locals. Kinda like the way it is here vis a vis Mexico. Who'd want to stay in Kiev or Kharkhov when there is no work there?

[pampango]

15. Ukraine is not entering the EU, so your concern is a bit misplaced. Too bad European progressives

haven't followed your advice over the years. They could have limited the EU to rich western European countries and built a big wall to keep poorer central and eastern Europeans out. For some reason they are not as afraid of their poorer neighbors as you are of Mexicans. European progressives seem to handle these things a little differently than Americans do.

[martymar64]

17. You're incorrect on one point

I am not afraid of Mexicans as you presumptuously assume. I was comparing the immigration situations regarding locals being pissed off about jobs being taken by "others"in the EU and the US. Many people with that anti-immigrant attitude exist in the US, that is undeniable. But I'm not one of them.

I'm not worried about European progressives. It's the reactionaries that are the problem. Europe has several open sore issues that it's ignoring. Example, violence against Turks in Germany. Another issue is the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe into the Western European sex trade. Europe also gave an extremely weak response with respect to the dissolution of Yugoslavia and horrendous bloodshed that followed. They sat on their hands and watched Bosnia burn until the US forced them through NATO to address the issue. So to wrap it up, Europe isn't the progressive utopia that you make it out to be.

[pampango]

18. Indeed, Europe is no "progressive utopia" but the EU has regularly allowed poorer countries to join.

Are there reactionaries in Europe with anti-immigrant attitudes (as there are in the US)? Without a doubt. Right wing parties like the British National Party (UK), the National Front (France) and the Freedom Party (Netherlands - which just had a strong showing in their recent election) are a few examples of anti-immigration political parties. They have had some success of late appealing to people who are "pissed off about jobs being taken by "others"in the EU".

It's not that there are no reactionaries in Europe. It's that in the political contest between them and progressives, the progressives have generally prevailed (certainly more so than in the US), as one can see from the progressive nature of European governments. But the battle goes on and always will in an open society. The opposition to EU expansion into poorer eastern European countries comes from the euro-sceptic right wing parties (like those above), not from the left.

My apologies for misunderstanding your previous post.