The session of the Scientific Council of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine took place on November 5, 2002. The participants discussed the issue of "Geopolitical Aspects of the European Integration of Ukraine". Now we publish the minutes of the discussion. * * * A. Zlenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine: During the independence the idea of the European integration has undergone tangible transformations. I remember first months of independence when this idea was forwarded and very emotionally discussed. At that time we seemed to have dotted our "i's" and crossed our "t's" in a sense that everything depended only on us, Ukrainians, on the success of the political and economical reforms and on how fast Ukraine would change. With time we all came to understand that our internal transformations prove really a key problem and the only factor affecting future development of the Ukrainian state. It is not only the subject, but also the object of political game on the international arena, the game where one can win only regarding all political tendencies, all existing explicit and implicit trends. Of course, we should take them into consideration and the European integration makes this even more evident. Our state is situated between two powerful geopolitical magnets, which cannot but influence it. Mutual relations between these two magnets are permanently varying. We witness complex and dynamic development in relations between the United States and Russia, Russia and the EU, the EU and the United States. These relations have direct and indirect impact on Ukraine. We should be absolutely sensible and fair in answering a number of questions as to what extent the geopolitical environment in Europe will be favorable for Ukraine in the next years. And this is a complicated prediction. It is necessary to imagine a degree of impact of the rapprochement of the United States and Russia, we are observing, on the European integration of Ukraine, then to evaluate whether the fo ... Читать далее