Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I refer to my amendment No. 2 to the Government motion. The hypocrisy of the Government and of the European Union in its Machiavellian manoeuvring in the Ukraine is breathtaking. The misfortune of the people of the Ukraine was to be trapped for decades in a Stalinist dictatorship. It was a very brutal regime dominated by Russia. When Stalinism collapsed control passed to robber barons and oligarchs who robbed the publicly-owned economy blind, and to right-wing regimes based on capitalism. Now again the people of the Ukraine have been caught in a ruthless pincer movement between two major capitalist, imperial powers: the EU and the US on the one hand and Russia on the other. Each is pushing its own selfish economic and political agenda, which is exactly the train of events that led to the First World War, although thankfully that is not in prospect now.

The EU is guilty of nauseating hypocrisy on these issues. For two years, I was a member of the international trade committee of the European Parliament. I saw the EU in its economic dealings with outside countries to be absolutely brutal and ruthless, pushing the interests of European big business. Kazakhstan is a case in point; it is a brutal dictatorship that represses workers and massacres those on strike. However, for its fabulous wealth its president is feted by the leadership of the EU. They are now jockeying with Russia. The Yanukovych regime was absolutely brutal and corrupt, and was hated by a majority of the people. However, the EU then backed the most right-wing reactionary forces in response to that in order to represent their interests which are now in the government.

Neither Russian capitalism nor EU neoliberalism has anything to offer the working class and poor of the Ukraine. We have the spectacle of billionaire oligarchs in the Ukraine now being placed in charge of regions by the government.

All military interference should be ended. NATO, US and Russian forces should be moved out of the region so that the people can shape their own future. Neither the Russian nor the EU's economic systems has anything for the poor or working people. The country's wealth should be placed under the democratic control and ownership of the working class in the Ukraine, and not that of EU big business or Russian oligarchs. On that basis it would be entirely possible to build a new society based on democratic socialism where only the interests of the people are predominant. In such a society all rights, including linguistic, national and religious ones, could be guaranteed.

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