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Soros: Europe must not treat Ukraine like another Greece
That's my job!The European Union stands at a crossroads. The shape it takes five years from now will be decided in the coming 35 months. Year after year, the EU has successfully muddled through its difficulties. But now it has to deal with two sources of existential crisis: Greece and Ukraine. That may prove too much. Greece’s long-festering crisis has been mishandled by all parties from the outset. Emotions are running so high that muddling through is the only constructive alternative. But Ukraine is different. It is a black-and-white case. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine, in defending itself, is defending the values and principles on which the EU was built. Yet Europe treats Ukraine like another Greece. That is the wrong approach, and it is producing the wrong results. Putin is gaining ground in Ukraine, and Europe is so preoccupied with Greece that it hardly pays any attention. Putin’s preferred outcome in Ukraine is to engineer a financial and political collapse that destabilises the country, and for which he can disclaim responsibility, rather than a military victory that leaves him in possession of – and responsible for – part of Ukraine. He has shown this by twice converting a military victory into a ceasefire. The deterioration in Ukraine’s position between the two ceasefire agreements – Minsk I, negotiated last September, and Minsk II, completed in February – shows the extent of Putin’s success. But that success is temporary, and Ukraine is too valuable an ally for the EU to abandon. More at the link. Posted by: badanov 2015-04-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=414434 |