The Eastern Partnership must include Russia, Turkey and other Eastern European states and not be selective as it is nowadays, creating a new Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Black Sea arch, MEP Tatiana Zhdanok told RT.
RT:You’re the only MEP to sign this statement against the Association Agreement with Ukraine. Why have none of your colleagues joined you?
Tatiana Zhdanok: No, it’s just for the reason of the parliament not convened now. We are starting a new composition of the Parliament and it will start its work on July 1, that’s the problem. The people who signed this declaration are the members of the Sofia Club, there is a former member of the European Parliament from Italy, as well as politicians from 7 EU member states and some Eastern partners, so this is our common position which will be joined by certain colleagues within the European Parliament next week when we start our work. We just repeated the position of the Sofia Club politicians made in October last year, that the Eastern Partnership Program shouldn’t be some kind of creation of new Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Black Sea arch which repeats an Iron Curtain or Berlin Wall, that the partnership must include Russia, Turkey and other Eastern European states and not be selective as it is nowadays, as it was also before the Vilnius summit. Now all these events in Ukraine show that the position of the Ukrainian people is just not what President Poroshenko said. The society is extremely divided and it is not well-informed what the consequences will be for signing this trade agreement. I am an MEP elected in Latvia in 2004 just after Latvia joined the EU, and the Latvian people know very well these consequences. We lost our economic independence completely.
Read the full story at: www.rt.com /link to original article