MOSCOW, November 1 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova — A truly independent Donetsk and Luhansk will kick-start the economic development of the entire region, giving a new start to a fragmented Ukraine with enormous potential, Veneto's delegate for independence and professor of European history at the University of Insubria Paolo Bernardini told RIA Novosti.
"The real and effective independence of the DPR [Donetsk People's Republic] and the LPR [Luhansk People's Republic] may create a new balance of power in the former Ukraine, and peaceful relations among the various parts of the region, including the DPR, LPR, Crimea, and what will be left of Ukraine," Bernardini explained adding that the decentralization of power is a different thing. "A number of small states in fiscal competition one with the other would re-launch a region full of economic potential," he said.
On November 2, the people of Donetsk and Luhansk will hold elections for regional leaders and legislative bodies, despite Kiev's intention to hold local elections in these regions on December 7.
This summer, newly elected Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said that Ukraine would not become a federation, though the country's authorities were ready for decentralization. He then brought the corresponding constitutional amendments before the country's parliament for debate and asked the Venice Commission to study the proposed measures. Poroshenko's amendments proclaim decentralization of power as a key priority, creating a new system of checks and balances which includes dissolving regional administrations and giving their powers to local councils, able to manage their own budgets.
"In a peaceful situation, a fragmented Ukraine might benefit from a potentially rich internal market, and might think about the creation of a federation, and re-think and assess its own identity," Bernardini told RIA Novosti.
He also stressed that the European Union has huge responsibility for the conflict.
"By sealing the Polish-Ukraine border with dogs and armed militias the EU's policies were at the basis of the war, a traditional natural border economy replete with traditional fluxes (goods, people) has been violently terminated, in an effort to render the EU a closed commercial state, full of monopolies, the nightmare idealized by the German philosopher Fichte in the Romantic age of a small Prussia has been realized by the EU since the 1990s," Bernardini said.
According to the Veneto delegate for independence, in a global market, Ukrainian agricultural production, would make Ukraine rich and benefit the entire world, particularly Europe.
"The EU is tragically evolving into a fourth Reich. This is a tragedy and not only for Ukraine," Bernardini concluded.
