Estonian president talks Ukraine crisis

Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves believes closer ties with Europe would help Ukraines

They have got themselves into quite a pickle, with their indebtedness. Now just to keep things of perspective, because there are blown out of perspectives, everywhere. I mean the association agreement that Ukraine has negotiated for these years, mean it's an agreement that my country has negotiated in the early 90s and signed in June of 1995, almost 20 years ago. It is not the EU membership, it is basically a free trade agreement that gives a lot of access to Ukrainian goods to European market. It's a step forward but it really is far,far ,far short of membership. It took us nine years from when we signed the association agreement until we joined in between we had to be access to as to whether we were good enough to join the EU, and we don't have to proceed a negotiate excession. so it is really being blown out of proportion by some of our friends on the Russian side.

Do you believe the closer ties with Europe will actually help them economically?

Absolutely, because the brilliant rule of law and the business, I mean you want contracts to be observed ,we want to reduce corruption which is a very large problem in that country. As so great transparency, transparency rules, I mean court system that can be counted upon to judge equitably. All of those things make for a much healthier economic environment, and those are things would come with the European Union and adopting European laws and standards.