The "EuroMaidan (a mass rally in support of European integration) has cancelled the possibility of Ukraine's integration into the Customs Union, Director of the Institute of Global Strategies Vadym Karasiov has said.
“The Maidan showed that the path to the Customs Union is closed, it is crossed, and nobody in Ukraine – neither at the level of the government nor especially at the level of the opposition – will turn and go to the Customs Union. This possibility has just been crossed. All the talk about the Customs Union can be closed. If someone today announces integration into the Customs Union, he is either a political outcast, or, if this is an active politician, a political corpse,” he told Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.
He said that Ukraine actually “closed the subject of the turn to the Customs Union, and, in fact, shut down its Soviet, post-Soviet past.” He also said that now “the issue concerns only movement to Europe.”
“The Maidan demonstrated the final approval of the European idea in Ukraine as a national idea that unites most people,” Karasiov said.
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The expert said that the “EuroMaidan slightly changed the opposition configuration, because there is a new generation of leaders from among journalists and civil society activists.”
“This Maidan can be seen as a form of civil enforcement of the authorities to the speedy signing of an association and free trade agreement with the European Union. This Maidan is not so much political, not aimed against the authorities, or someone personally, it is aimed at the European future of Ukraine,” Karasiov said.
He noted that the activity of the EuroMaidan participants showed that “the European idea has finally won in Ukraine.”
