Ukraine

Ukrainians today are more serious about liberal democracy than many Europeans have been for a long time. The traditional values of Europe – self-reliance, self-determination – today are much stronger in the Maidan square than in parts of, say, Greece.

I wish I were wrong, but all the piece come together reminding of the Munich scenario, the defence of the Russian minority, Ukraine waiting for its allies to take action, the allied armies standing idle, the aggressor producing facts and a desperate fight to keep up pretences of law and order by the West.

I am writing to you as a former prisoner of conscience from the times of Brezhnev. All other titles, which I have been awarded throughout my whole life, do not matter in the light of the Ukrainian Maidan, which is now bleeding.

The Kremlin’s influence has always been a reality. It is naive to negate it.

With this in mind, we wish the protesters in Ukraine well and hope that their situation, where the confrontation with the state is direct, visible and imminent, also clarifies it to the rest of the world that the struggle is always there.

We cannot agree to a situation when in the 21st century an autocrat - possessed by the nostalgia for the Soviet empire - leads the EU by the nose and deprives Ukrainian people of the longed for perspective of living in freedom and democracy.

Why wouldn\'t EU farming be made subject to global verification? Food would be even 40% cheaper. And billions of euros would flow into the EU budget.

The integration with Ukraine and Turkey is a barometer that will show whether the Old Continent will prove to be a vigorous and important player in the 21st century.