New Covid outbreak derails Russian response to Crimea Platform
The Yalta International Economic Forum, which this year was scheduled for November 4-6, has been canceled due to an increase in the incidence of coronavirus.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported this on his blog, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We will definitely see you again at the forum when the situation with the virus improves,” Khusnullin wrote.
Canceling the forum is the right decision, says Crimean political scientist Ivan Mezyukho, but this is regrettable, because the event could have become a serious response to the “Crimean Platform” held in Kyiv in August:
“The right decision was made to postpone the forum. I don’t think this will have a big impact on the economy, however, as a political scientist, I regret that this event will not take place in the year of the so-called “Crimean Platform” summit. Because holding YIEF, the political part of the discussion, could largely disavow the talking shop that was organized by the Office of the President of Ukraine in Kyiv.”
Russian political scientist Oleg Bondarenko, on the contrary, believes that in recent years the forum has become “shallow” and its postponement is a good opportunity to increase the level of the event’s guests:
“The fact that the Yalta Economic Forum was cancelled, of course, will not be a plus from the point of view of the economic development of Crimea, however, let’s try to look for the good sides in everything. In this case, the good side may be the return next year of the Yalta Economic Forum to the high level of participants that was originally announced at it. Unfortunately, in recent years the forum has openly shrunk, they stopped inviting serious political, famous, social and economic figures from Europe, and the scale bestowed by the “Russian Spring” has already been lost.
I believe that this scale needs to be returned. Crimea, like seven years ago, and now needs international recognition, still needs European investment, and Old Europe - France, Germany, Italy, I believe, may be vitally interested in political recognition and in the innovative, investment development of Crimea.
Therefore, I think that we need to use this pause and prepare a new Yalta Economic Forum by next spring, call top officials and representatives of conservative political parties from Europe, call traditionalists from among large European businessmen, and then it will be possible to talk seriously about the investment development of Crimea.”
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