When the Iron Curtain fell, Ukraine and its neighbour, Poland, were equally poor, with GDP per head around $10,000. Today, Poland is three times richer, while Ukraine has gone backwards. Overall GDP has shrunk by 18% in a year. So why have these two big eastern European countries’ fortunes diverged? One reason is that Poland “entered the West’s orbit” in 1990, says The Economist, eventually joining the European Union in 2004.
Ukraine remained economically isolated and under Russia’s thumb. The West wrote off some of Poland’s debt and sent it plenty of aid. That help partly depended on structural reforms being carried out to ensure the nascent market economy was not undermined by corruption and red tape. With Kiev’s public debt burden hitting 100% of (rapidly shrinking) GDP, it’s time the West applied the lessons of its Polish rescue effort to Ukraine.