Ukraine Should Not Be Dropped From Europe – Reporter

What You Need To Know:

✅ Europe's loss of solidarity with Ukraine: “In Europe we have to solve our problems first in order to be able to reach out again;”

✅ The ‘No’ vote in the recent Ukraine-EU Association Agreement referendum held in the Netherlands, is unsympathetic towards Ukrainians, but unfortunately, it represents a harsh reality;

✅ Smit believes that Europe should not confront Putin using moral soft powers, when the Russian president is a "street fighter;"

✅ Ukraine should not be dropped out of Europe but rather developed as a neutral region.

“Europe has to develop other ways of looking at our own problems and we have to develop another vision on dealing with Putin,” says Eric Smit, Follow the Money Investigative Reporter, on the Netherlands' and Europe's loss of solidarity with Ukraine. “In Europe we have to solve our problems first in order to be able to reach out again.”

Smit says that the ‘No’ vote in the recent Ukraine-EU Association Agreement referendum held in the Netherlands, is unsympathetic towards Ukrainians, but unfortunately, it represents a harsh reality. He adds that “a lot of these no-voters are in favor of Putin, or at least have sympathies toward this 'strong man.'” Smit believes that Europe should not confront Putin using moral soft powers, when the Russian president is a "street fighter."

Ukraine should not be dropped out of Europe but rather developed as a neutral region, Smit thinks: “Europe has to show, that were are not going to put our hands on Ukraine. We have to show the Kremlin, that we are keeping out of the region. Unfortunately. How much we would like to help, if we could, we are not able and we shouldn’t in a geopolitical manner.”

Hromadske spoke to Eric Smit, Follow the Money Investigative Reporter in Amsterdam on April 7th, 2016.