Poland A and Ukraine B. Compare how far Poland has advanced.

I think any reasonable person, if given the choice, would choose to border Germany (most importantly), the Baltics, the Czech Republic, and Sweden (across the puddle)... than Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Hungary, and Poland - no? So I wouldn't chalk up sharing a border and a language with Russia as such a big advantage. In fact, I think these days very few Ukrainians see bordering Russia and sharing a language with it as a great advantage. I agree, however, that it was "location, location, location" that predetermined the present disparity between the two countries.

Ukraine of the 1991 vintage was f%#&ed before it started, because of the neighbors it had. Poland was dragged into modernity, because of the neighbors it had. Of course it also helped that everyone felt very guilty about their treatment of Poland in the recent past and felt they owed it one (ditto for the Romanians, Hungarians, Czechs, etc., while also recognizing that Poland benefited disproportionately from development funds in comparison to other 2004 inductees).

@Ironside

Some people don't feel that admittance into the EU was much of a gift, and certainly not enough compensation for past betrayals. Here I can only say, that whatever happens to be the truth: nobody likes the guy that looks a gift horse in the mouth. The transformative effect of EU funds is an established fact, and Poland has now been a member of the EU for 15 years. Aristocratically sneering at money, after 15 years of taking it, only makes you look like a hypocrite. Under the current 2014-2020 financial framework of the EU budget, Poland is slated to receive 82.5 billion euros intended for furthering the union's cohesion policy. Last year, the GDP of Poland was ~520 billion euro. So just those funds, represent more than 1/6th of the entire annual economic output of Poland. Do you still think it's just peanuts, and that only ignoramus morons speak of such things? Can you point me out a single "ore rich and oil rich" bantustan that received even 1/10th this amount of funds? The amount of EU funds transferred to Poland over the last decade-and-a-half represents a singular, and historic altruistic transfer of wealth between nation states, overshadowed only by the transfer of money from West to East Germany (can be argued it is one state and thus does not apply).

Maf and delph, you are both right.
I would only add that during communism private ownership was tolerated by the Polish regime and many Poles retained the spirit of enterprising individualism which was necessary to start building the capitalist society. In Ukraine, like in the whole Soviet Union, probably everything belonged to the state.


Sorry, but now count that annual GDP of 500 billion by 6 years and you will get 3000 billion euros. 80 billion is really peanuts as someone said.

Two faced traitors, sided with the russians then the germans, deported my family to siberia stuff their EU aspirations, they are doing ok cutting my grass in Poland B

Also Poland encouraged contacts (within strict limits) with Polonia and between westerners who might visit Poland and Polish people. That was absolutely not the case anywhere in the USSR where a person could be imprisoned for talking to a foreigner...

@pawian

oh yeah, definitely it was the enterprising individualism of Poles which led to their capitalist triumph, while it was their knavish ways, that brought Ukrainians to the present state of affairs. Spoken like a true szlachcic.

It certainly wasn't the good geographic fortune of neighboring Germany in the former case, and neighboring Russia in the latter.

Regarding economic numbers, and the 3 trillion euro projection you used. You do realize that GDP encompasses all economic activity, right? A government budget typically represents anywhere between 20% and 40% of GDP. That's all the money that will be spent in a year by the government on everything, from health to education, and defense. So 82.5 billion euros represents a huge sum of money that is injected on top of everything.

I didn`t say anything about Ukrainian spirit so why are you putting words in my mouth? :):)


Sorry but your geographical theory is groundless. Look at Lithuania - it is much more prosperous than Ukraine. Neighbours: Poland, Russia, Belarus, other Baltics. Where is that crucial Germany?

Coming back to healthy Ukrainian spirit - I think it was destroyed by communism which aimed at producing homo sovieticus person - passive and dependent on authorities. Before WW2, the Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was very strong in Poland. How much of it was allowed to develop in communism?

When the Soviet Union annexed western Ukraine in 1939, the Soviet authorities liquidated most Ukrainian community institutions, including Ukrainian cooperatives.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_cooperative_movement

No it's the vodka , one flask where I am buys a morning of work, digging,painting weeding and mowing.

@pawian

Lithuania, and the Baltics at large, are the exceptions that prove the rule, and arguably a poor example. Nonetheless, their tiny size allowed them to perform system-wide reforms in a much smoother and faster fashion than any larger state, that has to contend with various regional factions and powerful oligarchic clans, would be able to. This why what was possible in Georgia under Saakashvili, is not necessarily possible in Ukraine under Poroshenko, however pure his intentions and however many Georgians and Latvians he stuffs his cabinet with.

Was it not you, just a few weeks ago, that created a thread discussing electoral and economic development statistics in relation to what empire that part of Poland used to belong to? What was clear from those charts was that any part of Poland that was closer to Germany did better than its eastern counterpart.

Finally, you can agree that Ukraine had to contend with all those things you list (collectivization, shuttering of cooperatives, etc), because it was a constituent part of the Soviet Union, to which it belonged because of its geographic proximity to Russia's heartland. Poland was able to break free, because it was far. I created another thread at some point about the interesting historic counter-factuals of what would have happened if Poland had not won the Polish Soviet war and became a republic of the USSR. I should find it.

Closer to Germany = farther from Russia.... same effect. Germany is a functional European socio-economic entity - Russia is its own dysfunctional thing, mired in corruption and tyranny.

Well, feel free to believe in fables if that makes you feel better. Here I have thought that you are looking for real reason/reasons rather than fish for something that would cheer you up and your inferiority complex.

How does admitting that EU funds played a huge role in speeding up Polish economic development in any way a furtherance of an inferiority complex? I think it is an inferiority complex to insist on the opposite in defiance of all empiric evidence.

OK, if you insist on this geography, let it be so. But only a little. :):) Because mentality played a role too.
Poland is further to the West than Ukraine, indeed. Poles have always considered themselves a part of Western and Central Europe, even when they were seperated from them politically and economically. The collapse of communism opened new opportunities for Poland and it was obvious it would join the EU one day because such were Polish traditional aspirations.

As for Ukrainian aspirations, they weren`t so Europe-oriented. I still remember reading articles in 1990s about Ukrainian reserve or even distrust to European institutions, let alone NATO. Ukrainians simply didn`t know which way they should go while Poles always knew it. In result, Poles didn`t waste time while Ukrainians did.

Simple.