“Besides that, the EU has never had an appetite for sanctions on Ukraine because many of its members, especially Cyprus and Britain (and its offshore zones BVI and Belize), receive billions of dollars each year in money sent by oligarchs offshore to evade taxes. Germany remains the leading opponent of signing but not because of human rights and Tymoshenko.”
The author adds that “Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, and the Czech Republic — all strong supporters of signing — see the association agreement as leading one day to full EU membership for Ukraine. This is precisely why the Germans, who are adamantly against EU (and NATO) enlargement, are using the human rights card that Yanukovych has so conveniently provided for them.”
Thinking that Ukraine is too geopolitically important to be permitted to fall into Russia’s hands, “president Yanukovych believes he can have a “free lunch” with the EU because. He has therefore sought to scare the West by seeking observer status in Vladimir Putin’s budding Eurasian Union, the CIS Customs Union, and creating a consortium with Russia for Ukraine’s gas pipelines,” cites GlobalPost.