The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called the Ambassador of France due to statements by President Emmanuel Macron about Ukrainian illegal migrants in Europe. This was reported in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
“The French ambassador to Ukraine was invited to the Foreign Ministry to provide clarifications. The Ambassador of France noted that the French side has no complaints against Ukrainian citizens who travel around the country. Consequently, Macron’s words regarding migration and legal employment were taken out of context, ”the Ukrainian department said in a statement.
Recall that earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with Valeurs Actuelles, said that he, as president, advocates legal migration and would prefer to see legal migrants from Africa instead of illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe.
“I prefer people who come from Guinea or Côte d'Ivoire on a legal basis ... rather than underground networks of Bulgarians or Ukrainians,” the French president emphasized.
- Emmanuel Macron and refugees from Africa
- © Michel Spingler / AFP
"Do not deserve it"
The statement of the leader of the Fifth Republic in Ukraine was received with resentment. So, Verkhovna Rada deputy from the European Solidarity party Irina Gerashchenko called Macron the “friend” of the Russian president Vladimir Putin and called on the Foreign Ministry, the president’s office and parliament to respond to the words of the French leader.
“Macron’s statement is all the more outrageous because he is a participant in the Norman format and should be especially careful in choosing words about Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Gerashchenko said.
In turn, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavel Klimkin believes that Macron Ukrainians "confused with someone."
“We did not deserve this,” the ex-diplomat wrote on his Facebook page.
Recall that back in August a number of Ukrainian politicians criticized Emmanuel Macron for a Twitter post in Russian, where he stated that Russia is a “European country” and he believes in Europe “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”.
As political analyst Alexander Asafov noted in an interview with RT, Macron’s statement was painfully received in Ukraine, as this is not the first evidence that the attitude of the West towards Ukraine is changing. France and Germany require Kiev to implement the Steinmeier formula, and in the US, congressmen want to recognize the Azov regiment as a terrorist organization, the expert recalled.
“The Ukrainian elites have a sense of betrayal. Yesterday, they believed that the whole world and all of Europe together with Ukraine were fighting against Russia, and therefore they turned a blind eye to the existence of Ukrainian Nazism, to the persecution of dissidents, to shelling civilians in the Donbass. They also turned a blind eye to the very serious problem of illegal labor and criminal expansion of Ukrainian citizens for a number of countries, ”Asafov said. - Now the context of international relations is changing. And, accordingly, Western leaders are beginning to notice something that was not customary to talk about before, because they were all in the same ideological trench. ”
According to the expert, “calling the ambassador is an extreme measure”, which indicates a high level of irritation in Kiev. However, such a rash step could cost the Ukrainian authorities in the future, Asafov said.
“Ukraine is waiting for unpleasant news. I think that while maintaining the existing circumstances related to Ukrainian migrants, changes can be made in the visa-free regime - the only achievement of Poroshenko, ”the political scientist emphasized.
Do not want to see
The granting of a visa-free regime to Ukraine in 2017 was presented by the Kiev authorities as the most important step towards integration into the EU and an achievement that allows us to say "final goodbye to the Russian and Soviet empires."
However, two years later, statements are made in the European Union about the need to restrict the entry of Ukrainian residents into Europe. In December 2018, in the annual report of the European Commission on the implementation of visa-free regime agreements with the countries of the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership program, they even threatened to freeze the visa-free regime with Ukraine if Kiev did not reduce the flow of illegal immigrants and did not succeed in the fight against corruption.
Recall that a visa-free regime does not give Ukrainians the right to work in the EU, but a large number of citizens of this country go to Europe precisely for the purpose of earning. Moreover, after 90 days - the period during which you can stay in the European Union through visa-free travel - Ukrainians often do not return to their homeland, automatically switching to the category of illegal immigrants.
- Ukrainians on the border with Poland
- © Yuri DYACHYSHYN / AFP
According to Eurostat, published in July 2019, in 2018, among illegal immigrants identified in the EU, Ukrainians accounted for 6% (38 thousand 150 people). Ukraine ranks second in the number of illegal migrants in Europe, second only to Morocco.
In September of this year, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Estonia, the leader of the Conservative People’s Party, Mart Helme, proposed abolishing the visa-free regime with Ukraine. According to him, Ukrainians coming to Estonia are actually “Russians”. In addition, according to the Estonian Interior Minister, migrants from Ukraine occupy the jobs of indigenous Estonians.
According to the Estonian edition of Baltnews, the Union of Construction Enterprises of the Republic recently proposed to control migrants from Ukraine with the help of “chipping”. True, we are not talking about implanting chips under the skin - it is planned to issue special electronic cards to labor migrants.
The Polish authorities do not make such statements, however, in this EU country, where the majority of “wages” go, who prefer to work in Europe rather than in Russia, Ukrainian migrant workers are faced with a negative reaction from the local population. In 2018, a sociological survey conducted by the Polish Center for the Study of Public Opinion (CBOS) showed that the negative attitude of Poles towards Ukrainians reached a record level over the past 10 years: 40% of Poles have a negative attitude towards residents of Ukraine. Only 24% spoke of neighbors from the east well.
In early October, the ex-deputy of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Alexey Zhuravko said that because of this attitude of local residents, Ukrainians in Poland are often forced to hide their nationality, posing as Russians or Belarusians and speaking among themselves in Russian.
According to Zhuravko, the reaction of the Poles is caused by the glorification in Ukraine of the OUN-UPA * figures, who in Poland are considered guilty of the Pole genocide during World War II. Allegedly, one Ukrainian guest worker in Poland was even forced to eat the red-black flag of Bandera.
As the Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova noted in September, over the past four years, the number of cases of discrimination against Ukrainians in Poland has grown six times.
In the Ukrainian media, information continually appears about the neglect of Ukrainians in Poland or even about direct aggression. An advertisement was placed in a restaurant in the city of Gdynia, where Ukrainians were called "nonhumans." Actor Yuriy Chebotarev was beaten in a Polish pizzeria, and another Ukrainian was in a coma after he spoke in Ukrainian at a Polish nightclub.
In June, one of the most egregious cases was reported by the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza. According to the publication, when a Ukrainian worker who worked at a Polish coffin factory felt unwell, the landlady ordered him to be taken not to the hospital, but to the forest, where he died. In Ukraine, the deceased has three children.
- Anti-Ukrainian Graffiti in Krakow
- globallookpress.com
- © Artur Widak / ZUMAPRESS.com
“Step to cancel visa-free travel”
“Europe understands that it receives criminal problems from Ukraine,” said Asafov. “This is not only street crime, but also crime related to smuggling, attempts to corrupt the local administration, and attempts to illegally obtain European citizenship.” And it’s not the best people who are traveling, but everyone who is able to buy a train or bus ticket. "Europe, which has experienced many problems from migration, understands what this could lead to."
Therefore, according to the political scientist, the fact that the problem of Ukrainian illegal immigrants was publicly voiced by the French president is “this is the first step towards the abolition of visa-free travel”.
The opinion of the Russian political scientist is also confirmed by the interlocutor of RT from the European Solidarity Party.
“The number of illegal migrants is growing, and this even annoys Estonia. As far as I know, the issue of suspending a visa-free regime between Ukraine and the Schengen countries is indeed being discussed, ”the deputy confirmed.
In turn, an RT source in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry noted that Macron’s statement was “alerted” to Ukrainian diplomats, even despite assurances from the French ambassador that “the French president has nothing against the Ukrainians.”
“Politicians like Macron do not make loud statements for nothing. They indicate that Ukraine is getting tired in the West, the window of opportunity for Ukraine in the West is closing. And Ukrainian officials are to blame for this. Instead of carrying out reforms and combating corruption, politicians are engaged in demagogy, and the population is scattering, ”a RT source told the Batkivshchyna party.
- Vladimir Zelensky
- © Francois Lenoir / Reuters
President in doubt
The expert of the Council on Interethnic Relations under the President of Russia Bogdan Bezpalko noted in a conversation with RT that Macron’s statement “demonstrates his attitude to Ukraine as a whole, his attitude to President Zelensky and the Ukrainian state.”
The victory of Vladimir Zelensky shocked the EU countries, said a representative of the Voice party in a conversation with RT.
“In a country with developed democracy, politicians of this level could not even take part in the elections. Moreover, they suspect that Vladimir Zelensky’s connections with oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who allows himself to threaten the former head of the NBU, Valeria Gontareva, who is popular in the West. Zelensky has no political experience that would allow him to establish relations with Western partners, ”the deputy said.
According to Bezpalko, the current Ukrainian president is unlikely to change his attitude towards his country. To do this, he needs to demonstrate successful economic reforms and stop the flow of migrants. But this is not expected.
“To do this, we need to radically transform the Ukrainian economy, end the civil war, and establish relations with our neighbors, primarily with Russia. None of this can be seen from Zelensky in the form of real affairs, ”Bezpalko stated.
* “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) is a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 11/17/2014).