Ukraine will become a raw materials colony of the EU, having lost mechanical engineering - Medvedev

Moscow - Kyiv, December 15 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - In the economic sphere, the EU’s attitude towards Ukraine is more like neocolonialism, writes Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in his article for "NG", published this morning. According to him, the EU needs Ukraine as a source of raw materials and a market for European goods. Ukrainian goods, unable to withstand the competition, will flood into the Customs Union market, but they will not be allowed there. As a result, Ukraine will lose all of its mechanical engineering, and the financial damage to its budget will amount to $15 billion a year, Medvedev writes.

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“Many of Ukraine’s problems began precisely at the moment when the Kiev leadership - at the obvious prompting of its Western partners - began to talk about the need to reduce the notorious dependence on Russia,” the Russian prime minister recalls in his article. “After 2009, through the Eastern Partnership format, the idea of ​​reducing cooperation with our country was essentially imposed on Ukraine and a number of other countries,” Medvedev notes.

At the same time, Ukraine has nothing to compensate for this reduction, because “from the point of view of economic cooperation, the EU’s attitude towards Ukraine is more like neo-colonialism.”

“The European Union needs Ukraine primarily as a source of certain types of raw materials. And, of course, as a sales market for European companies,” Medvedev writes further. – A significant part of Ukrainian enterprises in their own market will not withstand competition with European goods. The consequence of tariff liberalization, which will cover up to 98% of goods from Europe, will be the gradual displacement of European products from competitors from the Ukrainian market. And the second wave of the European trade “tsunami” will bring all this volume to the markets of the countries of the Customs Union, which will worsen business conditions within the Customs Union,” predicts the head of the Russian government.

“Of course, we will not just observe this process, but will take retaliatory measures, the result of which will be a drastic reduction in the export of Ukrainian goods to Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan,” warns Dmitry Medvedev. “In this case, Kyiv’s losses could amount to up to $15 billion a year.”

Next, the Russian Prime Minister specifies some of the expected losses for Ukraine as a result of the entry into force of the Association Agreement with the EU in certain sectors.

“If we talk about the agricultural sector of Ukraine, which accounts for 17% of GDP and 27% of national exports,” then “Ukrainian agricultural producers” “find themselves in a deliberately losing position. Including because of the subsidies that are allocated to European farmers and which Ukrainian farmers can only dream about,” writes Medvedev. – “The annual quota for the import of wheat is set at 950 thousand tons with an increase over 5 years to 1 million tons. Thus, without export duties, Ukraine will be able to import only 50% of supplied wheat into the European Union. The remaining volume will be subject to a duty of 95 euros per ton, which will increase the price of Ukrainian grain for consumers by at least one and a half times,” sums up the Russian Prime Minister.

Medvedev also recalls that according to the Association Agreement with the EU, Ukrainian “mechanical engineering will have to fully switch to EU standards in two years. The path that the industrialized countries of Europe (Germany, France, Holland, etc.) have covered in 5–6 decades, Ukraine must overcome in 5–10 years. This is due to very large allocations. It would be naive to expect compensation for these costs from the European Union,” Dmitry Medvedev points out.

Thus, the head of the Russian government leads readers to the conclusion that as a result of “European integration” in its current format, Ukraine will lose its manufacturing industry and part of its agriculture.