[aaus-list] Madam Timoshenko est jolie mais l'argent de M. Putin est mieuller?.

[stephen velychenko]

Money and French  oppositon  Ukrainian  NATO Membership. A little-bit
of history.
(Full version submitted to  MAIDAN KYIV POST and UKR WEEKLY )

Stephen Velychenko
University of Toronto.


France obviously  has little affection for Ukrainians. Perhaps  too
many there  cannot forget that thanks to the Central Rada and its
German alliance, and then  to Petliura, who overthrew Hetman
Skoropadsky after he had agreed  repayment of  Ukraine's portion of
the tsarist debt to France, French capitalists and industrialists and
part of the middle-class, lost all their money in 1919. For those who
don't know, on September 26, 1918, the Hetman's Council of Ministers
promised an advance on the Tsarist coupons for the bonds held in
Ukrainian banks before November 3, 1918.  The Hetman had managed to
get Ukraine's Russian industrialists (PROTOFIS) to put up the money .
But the bondholders never received anything thanks to Petliura's
successful offensive. Germany agreed to cancel its debts to Russia at
Rapallo (1922) .

Any economic history  book has the figures:
In 1919, as the French government centralized the claims related
to French interests in Russia, 1.6 million investors filed  forms.
 According to the Office National des Valeurs Mobilières,
the amounts invested in tsarist Russian shares and bonds before WWI reached 15
to 18 billion francs .

The Bolsheviks repudiated all loans in 1918 . But what has Mr PUTIN
been doing the last 12 months in France? We already know about the
millions he paid Germans a few years ago, and how Herr Schroeder is
now  enjoying directorship in a Russian gas company.  Has RUssian
money also been going into French accounts?
An agreement  signed by then Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin on
May 26 1996 said neither Russia nor France would claim debts
accumulated before May  1945. Russia also agreed to  pay France $400
million in eight $50 million semi-annual payments, to  put an end to
financial disagreement between the
countries. The payments began being made in 1997.  The French
Association of Russian Bond Holders (AFPER), which represents about
13,000 French citizens who still own stock issued by tsarist Russian
companies was displeased, and claim it covers only government and not
private losses. It protested the agreement but a  court concluded
that the Russian government had immunity granted by the 1996 bilateral
agreement.
Has Mr. Putin kindly seen to paying these people? -With interest? Just
to show there are no hard-feelings?

The  French decision  is particularly  tragic in light of  Julia
Tymoshenko's recent political shift from centre-left social-democratic
positions, to a centre-right Christian- democratic one. She
undoubtedly had Ukraine's interests at heart hoping her new CD allies
would help the country's EU /NATO bid. Perhaps she should have offered
to pay-off the French bond-holders instead.

-- 
Stephen Velychenko
CERES Associate;
Research Fellow,Chair of Ukrainian Studies;
Munk Center
University of Toronto
Devonshire Place
Toronto M5S 3K7