Paper - Chair of Ukrainian Studies

international CONFERENCE
set against the background of the lack of any effective social programs to assist the unemployed.
There are some NGOs helping them but the demand for such services is much
greater than supply. People from Donbas do understand that the current state of eastern
Ukrainian heavy industry is poor and that reform threatens serious lay-offs.
Moreover, there also is a fear of price increases after the EU accession, perhaps
deepened by the 1990s experience, when prices rapidly increased after the collapse of the
USSR and the incomes did not change commensurately.
Thus the Sloviansk interviewee is afraid that if Ukraine should enter the EU,
everything will start becoming more expensive. A source of more fear are talks with truck
drivers from new members of the EU (e.g. Slovakia, Rumania) complaining about rising
prices. He says that none of them is content with their countries’ accession to the EU.
At the same time, he acknowledges that the level of quality is higher in these countries,
as, for instance, with gas.
He summarizes by stating that “we are closer to Russia. In the western regions,
they want into the EU but do not know what it is going to be like there. There is little
industry [in the western regions], so they have nothing to offer.” But at the same time
he concludes that “generally the EU is good, life there is good, but the visas are a problem.”
In general, the relationship with Russia is the second problem when discussing
Euro-integration issues with Ukrainians. Public opinion surveys conducted in Ukraine
show that Ukrainians generally feel themselves closer to Russia than to western or even
central Europe. 10 It is true that such results need to be treated carefully and contextualized.
Thus the latest Razumkov Center Independence Day poll has shown that, indeed,
twice more Ukrainians state identification with Russia than with Europe. At the same
time, however, both are, in fact, extremely low on the identification scale, with 2 percent
choosing Russia and one percent Europe. Moreover, it is also probable that the realtionship
between attitudes about living-standards and Europeanness are more complex, to
an extent even inverted: When asked if they feel themselves to be Europeans, 26 percent
of the Razumkov poll give an unqualified or qualified positive answer but nearly all of
those who do not, i.e. 73 percent say that their reason for saying no is their low standard
of living. 11 While this result does confirm the strong link between standard-of-living
issues and Europeanness it is also open to an interpretation, which would permit for the
possibility that an uncounted number out of the 73 percent do feel that there is more to
Europe than wealth and may even feel that they are in possession of these non-wealth
criteria but do also see wealth as a necessary, though precisely not sufficient condition of
being European, so that its absence disqualifies but its presence would not be enough.
10. See the the report „Ukraine after the ‘Orange Reviolution’ op.cit
11. Liudmyla Shanhina, Pro Krainu, derzhavu ta hromadian u perekhidnomu vitsi, Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, no. 31(610),
19-25 August 2006.
18