Galicia was never part of Ukraine, and all the local luminaries were Jews, Poles or Germans, and Ukrainians were hardly ever a significant part of the local population, but even if they were, it doesn’t matter, because the whole region was just a half-Asiatic non-European backwater, and the Ukrainians were not among the upper class, but even though there were hardly any Ukrainians in Galicia or at least they didn’t identify themselves as Ukrainians and had no prominence whatsoever, they _still_ were a “political and cultural elite” and had enough clout to destroy the whole Habsburg Empire and because of this cardinal sin, they should be refused access to the European Union.

I mean, huh? I know a nice lady from the University of Ivan Franko. Perhaps I should forward the article to her, so she could have a good laugh.

Anyway. Wagner doesn’t seem to know much of anything of the history of the region, but the part about how the Galician Ukrainians share the responsibility for the destruction of the Habsburg Empire is particularly hilarious. The traditional Galician loyalism and the story of the Ukrainian Sharp-Shooters in the Imperial and Royal Army seems to be unknown to him. Not to mention the story of those Ukrainians who were thrown to concentration camps in 1914-1915 by the Russian and Austrian military authorities, respectively.

Still, perhaps blocking the EU membership from all those countries that participated in the destruction of the Habsburg Empire really is a pretty good idea. Let’s throw out all those Entente countries who sent troops to the Isonzo and Saloniki fronts. Especially France, since Clemenceau played an important part in the final decision to put Austria-Hungary completely out of its misery.

But who the hell named Austria-Hungary as the precursor to the European Union, and where’s Wagner getting this from? I could just as well regard the League of Nations as the direct predecessor of the EU, and state that “we should not forget all those peoples who were instrumental in bringing down the League; not least the Germans and the Italians”.

As expected, Wagner also manages to throw in the usual stuff of how the West Ukrainians were all goddamn Nazi collaborators. Never mind that this is a slur that one usually hears from “Homo Sovieticus”-types who don’t really share the “occidental” views on the world.

(Ukrainians were Nazi collaborators? As opposed to Balkan Germans? Okay.)

Cheers,

J. J.

Also, there was a very good reason why the 1950s EU was “dedicated to the Occidental idea”; the other bit was occupied by the Russians.

Regarding German Russophilia, this goes right back to Bahr/Gromyko; the theory is something like this. There is no conflict between Ostpolitik and NATO/EU membership - this membership (Westintegration) is the guarantee that permits us to deal with the East Germans and Russians. This is however dependent on inter-superpower calm (no Grosswetterlage as Honecker put it), and therefore it is a primary German interest to make nice with the Russians.

Obviously this got revised with reunification; in a sense, East Germany was swapped for the ex-Warsaw Pact states. Their integration in NATO and the EU was dependent on Russian acquiescence; therefore Germany must be nice to the Russians.

I don’t know enough history to evaluate his thesis.

If Ukraine was responding to Moscow, why would it seek an alliance with its strategic rival? And if it was true, would not it show the greatness of the EU and NATO if Ukraine wanted to switch sides?

I think the EU has done a lot of harm to itself with handling Turkey’s accession they way it had. There could have been two better options than the many decade long inconclusive muddling: either a yes, or a no with an offer of real alliance on a number of issues. We have just kept a big and strong country frustrated for many-many years. This is something the EU should not do with Ukraine.