Grant Lee <grantlee at iinet.net.au> wrote: Chris said:
> I do think a community of post-Soviet states will exist; it will simply
not be like the EU. It will be Moscow-dominated and Russocentric (like
> the USSR and the Russian Empire)."
OK, my mistake. But what price/s (economic or otherwise) will Russia have to pay, to get the other ex-Soviet states to sign off on some kind of economic community?
I write:
Ukraine, Russia ratify post-Soviet economic union By Olena Horodetska
KIEV, April 20 (Reuters) - Russia and Ukraine ratified membership of an economic union on Tuesday, despite protests in Ukraine where the opposition says the deal is an attempt by Moscow to reassert its former imperial power.
The union, creating a common tax code and a customs union ending trade tariffs, is also intended to include Belarus and Kazakhstan, which have yet to ratify the arrangements.
In the Ukrainian parliament, the opposition boycotted the vote but ratification still passed easily; 265 lawmakers in the 450-seat chamber voting in favour.
In the Russian Duma, where President Vladimir Putin's supporters have a big majority of the 450 seats, support was overwhelming; 408 voted in favour.
The plan was signed by the presidents of the four former Soviet republics last year. Kazakhstan will vote on Wednesday. Belarus says its parliament, which rarely contradicts President Alexander Lukashenko, plans to consider approval soon.
The four have a combined population of about 225 million -- nearly 150 million of them in Russia and 50 million in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said the union was key to sustaining economic growth once the European Union expands to Ukraine's western borders on May 1, raising new barriers to its exports.
"The main aim of a common economic space is to make Ukraine's economy more competitive," Finance Minister Mykola Azarov said as he presented the document.
KIEV CRITICS
The opposition criticised the document as an attempt to weaken the independence Ukraine won from Moscow in 1991.
"We are betraying the Ukrainian people," Oleh Tyagnybok, a member of parliament from the opposition party Our Ukraine, said. "Russia, whether it was under the tsars or under the soviets, has always tried to suppress Ukraine."
About 3,000 people rallied outside parliament during the vote, waving Ukraine's blue and yellow flag and nationalist banners reading "No to Union, No to the Return of the USSR."
The neighbours have a long history of rivalry.
In Moscow, opposition Communists and the Fatherland party staged a walkout after ratification when the Duma voted to ratify two border agreements with Ukraine. They accused Kiev of discriminating against Ukraine's millions of Russian speakers.
There have been several attempts to form economic unions among former Soviet states struggling to boost their economies and win new markets after a regional financial crisis in 1998. Significant results, however, are hard to discern.
(Additional reporting by Douglas Busvine in Moscow)
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