European Union deal will harm most Ukrainians

This 23 March 2016 video from Ukraine says about itself:

“It is our responsibility to decide whether a treaty EU-Ukraine would improve stability in this country and in this region. In our opinion this is not a good treaty, it should’ve been restricted to trade”, Harry van Bommel, a member of Dutch parliament from the Socialist Party, on the association between Europe and Ukraine.

The Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Ukrainian researchers have investigated the impact of the controversial association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine on most Ukrainian people.

From the introduction to their report:

Introduction

On 6 April 2016, the Netherlands will go to the polls to vote in a referendum on the EU’s Association Agreement(AA) with Ukraine. The referendum is a special democratic event – 427,939 signatures of citizens were collected to make it possible. But what exactly is the Dutch electorate voting on and why does the Transnational Institute campaign for a No vote?

No to a trade deal for the 1%

The projected economic and social costs of the Association Agreement for Ukrainians:

• Enriches an oligarchic economy where large sectors of the economy’s wealth are siphoned off into offshore trusts

• Contributes to deindustrialising Ukraine, because its industrial producers will struggle to meet EU standards and lack sufficient capital and technology to compete with EU multinationals

• Reinforces a Ukrainian economy based on agro-exports and raw commodities, with less value-added benefits for the population

• Harms Ukraine’s critical small business sector that constitutes 99.8% of all Ukrainian enterprises and accounts for 67.8% of employment

• New jobs created by EU investments are unlikely to compensate for losses by Ukraine’s domestic business sector and EU investors will exploit Ukraine’s lower and frequently unenforced social and environmental standards

• Contribute to the ongoing brain drain as highly educated workers migrate to the EU. Between one third and one quarter of the Ukrainian work force is currently already working abroad

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