Ukrainian Perspective Research Articles

Securing Europe's Energy Future: The Ukrainian Perspective

Ukraine holds a pivotal position geographically, historically and politically alongside Europe and Russia. It is experiencing first-hand how the remnants of communist policies on energy use influence current practices, and how inefficient energy use at the residential and industrial levels threatens economic growth and financial security. This article aims to address the challenge of energy insecurity, encouraging a pan-European attitude to practical policy formation and implementation. In outlining the issues, the challenges posed by the Russian and Eastern European psyche and the will of Western Europe, a case is presented for a meaningful project with the potential for the emerging democracies to play an essential role in ensuring the future energy stability of Europe.

The EU and Ukraine: Rhetorical Entrapment?

Employing the notion of ‘rhetorical entrapment’, this article offers a discussion of Ukraine's EU membership prospects. It argues that while, for material reasons, the EU may want to keep Ukraine at arm's length, normative commitments made earlier may compel it to offer much more. The study first looks at the domestic situation in Ukraine in light of the country's call for accession talks to be opened in 2007, before it goes on to analyse the distribution of support for and opposition to the Ukrainian membership perspective among the EU member states.

Romanian Views on Bessarabia and Bukovina: A Ukrainian Perspective

Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet-Romanian Territorial Dispute. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1982. v, 173 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press. Maria Manoliu-Manea, ed., The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina. American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Humboldt State University Press, 1983. xii, 280 pp.Here are two good books providing detailed information on Bessarabia, until 1918 a province of the Russian Empire, and, to a lesser extent, on Bukovina, once a province within the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary. They include useful theoretical though somewhat debatable considerations on the history and ethnic nature of both regions. They come to proper conclusions which seem amply justified by the data and analysis which preceded them. However, both books are inadequately edited, especially the second one, and include a few statements either based on superficial generalizations or even tinted with disturbing — though perhaps unconscious — ethnocentrism.