To begin with, I think that all the EU countries, including Bulgaria and Romania, are safe. In fact, according to Transparency International, Bulgaria and Romania are not more corrupt than the old EU countries of Greece and Italy. So we should not really worry about Bulgaria. It's more about what is down in the Balkans, but we can leave that aside for now.
In the former Soviet Union, I think that it's a clear division, but Armenia and Belarus are so far fully in the Russian sphere. Azerbaijan is massively authoritarian and there's very little any outside power can do there until we see a serious regime collapse. That leaves us with three countries that are of interest: Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova. I would say that they will all go the way that Ukraine goes. Ukraine is the pivotal country for many reasons. I mention here that it has the greatest contrast. It is an open society with extraordinary transparency, far greater transparency than the United States has, for example. It is really at the level of Nordic countries, and at the same time, it's massively corrupt. There's a big fight going on against corruption; and the forces against corruption are civil society, part of the parliament, and the western powers.
Canada is greatly involved in Ukraine and plays a very positive role. Thanks to the open debate in Ukraine, there is a big consensus among civil society and western donors; and all the western donors have the same view. The issue in Ukraine is not socialism versus liberalism, it is corruption versus reform. The Ukrainians stand up for reform, and in order to get reform turning around in the right direction, we need to have a sufficient amount of money so that Ukraine can really move forward. At the end of 2013, the public debt of Ukraine in terms of U.S. dollars was $73 billion. Right now it is $71 billion. Ukraine has had far too little money from the west while they have carried out very big economic reforms.
I don't see this really as a bargaining process with governments against the west, although there is such an element also. As I see it, is the west there when there is real reform happening? That has been the case now in Ukraine for three years. The question is, will western aid to Ukraine be sufficient so that the good forces inside Ukraine can win.