EU Association Agreement with Ukraine Is a Gift to Kleptocrats

Michael Hudson: The agreement, by worsening economic conditions of Ukraine, will guarantee unending violence in the east - July 1, 14

ANTON WORONCZUK, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Anton Woronczuk in Baltimore. And welcome to another edition of The Hudson Report. Now joining us is Michael Hudson. Michael Hudson is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His two newest books are The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and Its Discontents. Thanks for joining us, Michael.

MICHAEL HUDSON, ECONOMICS PROF., UNIV. OF MISSOURI, KANSAS CITY: Good to be here.

WORONCZUK: So, Michael, let's talk about the economic association agreement that Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine signed with the E.U. last week. Let's get a sense of what are the details of the agreement. And how does this differ from--let's say, in economic terms, from a full-fledged membership with the E.U.?

HUDSON: Well, I'm going to begin by putting it in the big picture, and then I'll get to the details. The big picture is that this is a form of colonialism almost identical to what Europe did in Africa and Latin America and the Near East. What it did in the 19th century in Africa, where property was owned communally, was it would go to the chieftains of a given tribe, as it did to the Saudi Arabian chieftains, and it would say, well, to make an agreement, you have to register all this oil of your country, but you register it in your own name. And once they registered it in their own name, then Britain or France or the other European powers could make a deal that the chieftains could then sell this property or make contracts on behalf of oil or minerals with the European colonial powers. And that's how the colonial powers pried away all of this property from what had been tribal possession or communal possession.