Journalist Vitaly Portnikov in the column for Crimea. Realia writes about what the European vector of Ukraine means.
The new French President Emmanuel Macron in his interview to the world's leading media outlets has clearly defined his vision of the European Union. This is a union of values, not a supermarket. For the first time in many years, these words sounded so clearly from the lips of the leader of one of the leading countries of the continent.
It's no secret that this position coincides with the attitude of many Ukrainians towards the European Union - and often even with an intuitive, not a conscious attitude. The people who went to Maidan were not just for associating with the European Union. They advocated the values ??of the EU. For values ??that imply justice and solidarity.
That is why - for those European politicians who adhere to such values, it is so strange to observe today the behavior of some of the elites and the society of the countries of Central Europe, the Ukrainian neighbors. Emmanuel Macron cites the outstanding Polish politician and dissident Bronislaw Geremek, who told his young French colleague: "You have no idea how much you owe us". Geremek, of course, had in mind principles, not money. He spoke of the dividing lines that arose in Europe after World War II, when the part of the continent liberated from Hitler was given into actual possession of the regime no less disgusting than the Hitlerite. That is why Makron is now so surprised that the actual rejection of the principles - with the simultaneous desire to receive money. This is probably why Warsaw or Budapest are offended by the French chapter.
Do not just take advantage of Europe For Ukraine, these words of the French president - a program for the future. If Ukrainians want successful European integration, they should think first of all about principles, about European solidarity. Europeans do not even know how much they owe us. But in order for such a view to take shape, Ukraine should become part of Europe's values, not Europe's consumption of loans. Ukrainians need to remember what Europe went through on an uncomplicated path to unification, but also to remind that Ukraine - part of the "bloody lands" (according to historian Timothy Snyder's apt definition) - suffered no fewer victims.
After the disappointment that European leaders are now experiencing because of what McCron calls "betrayal" of neighbors across the continent, Ukraine should not give reason to suspect it in the banal consumerism. Ukrainians have experienced too much to just want to take advantage of Europe. No, Ukraine should become a real Europe - not in the geographical, but in the value sense of this concept. This is the secret of the civilizational success of Ukraine.