Roads are good. But good roads are better! Europeanisation and modernisation: the Ukrainian way. Ukraine building a road to Europe.

This picture, taken in Harkiv in August 2006 is depictive and descriptive of Ukraine’s modernisation processes which are not flawless. But at least some efforts are done. Ukraine is building a road to Europe since its independence in 1991.

Roads are good, it is a good start into Europe, but good roads are much better. The idea is great, but the implementation is worth a sarcastic smile. These are real life parallels to the Ukrainian politics: great Euro-integration rhetoric but if you take a look at it with a sober eye, it is satiric and ironic, but also painful if you understand how dramatic the situation is.

Now the quality of cement which they brought is too rough, it also hardened and can now hardly be used for building a road. Absurd implementation. Thus a lot needs to be learned from the West, and these are not only abstract values of respect towards its citizens (in Western countries the government cannot afford to insult the senses and dignity of its citizens with building such poor roads, as would calls the legitimacy of the state itself into question), but also know-how and concrete technologies from the West.

Everybody makes mistakes, especially learning by doing. Europe and Europeanization are not dead end outcomes but a continuous process.