Press Briefing by UNDP director of regional bureau for Europe and cis

It was imperative for the European Union to embrace former Soviet countries -- such as the Russian Federation, Belarus and Ukraine -- if it wanted to succeed, Kalman Mizsei, Director of the Regional Bureau for Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), said during a Headquarters press briefing this afternoon.

Insisting that people right outside of the borders of the expanded Europe should not be ignored, he elaborated that he was not just talking about countries such as Romania and Turkey, but also countries such as the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and Belarus, because, in all the world, they were the least favoured by European Union trading agreements.  Noting that HIV/AIDS was spreading extremely quickly in Russia and Ukraine, in part because most European sex workers came from those two countries, he said that this negative side effect of social and economic transition should be addressed by the European Union, since the continent was interconnected.

Telling correspondents that the UNDP had always been enthusiastic about European Union expansion, he, nevertheless, expressed concern that the newer members might have track records in governance that did not measure up to the more developed countries.  Also problematic, from a developmental standpoint, was the plight of the Roma.  The first comprehensive statistical research, on conditions endured by the Roma population of five new European Union members, revealed poverty on the scale of developing countries in other parts of the world.

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