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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25298 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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I find it hard to believe that the US demanded that Ukraine stops doing business with Russia.

Also, I also don't believe that Poland's main export is labour. It is true that a lot of Polish people were working in other EU countries but now Poland is developing their own industries and getting richer in this way.

Ukraine however remained poorer than Russia, mostly due to its own corruption. Despite all the flaws of the EU, the EU membership has been good for economic development of post-Soviet countries. Ukraine could definitely benefit from the EU membership.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union%E2%80%93Ukraine_Association_Agreement#Trade

This would have turned Russia's biggest trading partner and a deeply integrated part of the Russian economy into a state with the same rules for trade with Russia as EU countries. Effectively the idea was to bribe Ukraine into chosing the west by promising mountains of tax money from northern Europe in exchange for taking an anti Russian stance.

Several million Poles have moved west to work and western European companies are major employers in Europe. It is effectively a wage dumping operation.

Obviously when Ukraine joins the EU, it will be required doing business with Russia in accordance with the EU customs rules.

But that is completely different from the statement that the EU demanded Ukraine stop doing business with Russia.

We need to be precise what we mean to have a meaningful discussion.

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