Verkiezingen Ukra ïne zondag 7febr10

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Yanukovych kreeg op 17jan10 al de meeste stemmen en wordt geacht de
verkiezing a.s. zondag te winnen.
De verwachting is dat er kort daarna rust komt aan het gasfront.

Een goede zaak voor de EU én Ukraïne. De laatste zal naar verwachting
een lagere stabiele prijs voor gas krijgen. De EU krijgt een stabiele
toevoer.

De dame met de vlechtjes verliest een melkkoe ;)

Groet / Cees

Yanukovych, Tymoshenko Hold Opposite Views on Russian Gas
http://www.jamestown.org/
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 18
January 27, 2010 03:02 PM Age: 6 days
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Home Page, Energy, Russia, Ukraine,
Domestic/Social
By: Pavel Korduban

Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin (L) with his Ukrainian
counterpart and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko

Both Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and her opponent in the February 7
presidential election runoff, the former Prime Minister Viktor
Yanukovych, have sought Moscow’s support for their campaigns. Both are
expected to be rather pro-Russian compared to the outgoing pro-Western
President Viktor Yushchenko, who is perceived in Moscow as a Russophobe.
However, Tymoshenko and Yanukovych hold opposite views on the gas trade
with Russia. Yanukovych wants to revise the January 2009 gas contracts
with Russia and to set up an international consortium to manage
Ukraine’s pipelines. Tymoshenko defends the contracts and rejects the
consortium.

Yanukovych who, as opinion polls predict, is more likely to be elected
as the next president than Tymoshenko, called the gas contracts
“enslaving,” addressing his potential voters in Dnipropetrovsk which is
part of Ukraine’s industrial heartland. He said the price for Ukraine
should be “just” (Ukrainska Pravda, January 12). Speaking in western
Chernivtsi, Yanukovych said he would be ready to negotiate a revision of
the contracts with Moscow immediately after his election as president
(Interfax-Ukraine, January 19). Kommersant-Ukraine daily reported on
January 13 that Gazprom took Yanukovych’s threat seriously, so it was
preparing to go to court to defend the contracts.

Parts of southeastern Europe were left to freeze in early January 2009
because of the gas price dispute between Ukraine and Russia. There were
fears of a repetition of this, as the debt-ridden Naftohaz Ukrainy, the
state-owned oil and gas behemoth, has no cash to pay Gazprom. However,
Ukraine’s central bank came to the rescue, lending to Naftohaz from its
reserves. Fears about Naftohaz’s ability to pay for gas will only grow
as its financial condition is unlikely to improve anytime soon.
Meanwhile, the Russian gas price for Ukraine will increase by the end of
2010. The average annual price for Ukraine is expected to grow to $280
per 1,000 cubic meters in 2010 from $228 per 1,000 last year.

The metal and chemical industries in Yanukovych’s strongholds of east
and south Ukraine will suffer most from the price increase, hence
Yanukovych’s determination to revise the contracts. Tymoshenko’s
electorate in the predominantly rural central and western Ukraine is
less dependent on Russian gas. Similarly, Tymoshenko does not want to
spoil her good relations with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, so
she defends the contracts according to which Ukraine pays a higher price
for gas than most of its neighbors. However, while the contracts
brokered by Tymoshenko and Putin were based on market principles,
Yanukovych essentially suggests returning to the era of former President
Leonid Kuchma (1994-2004), when Russia sold cheap gas to Ukraine in
exchange for political and other concessions.

One concession Yanukovych is ready to make is establishing a consortium
with Russia to run Ukraine’s gas transit network. Yanukovych announced
that if he won the election he would initiate setting up an
international consortium to manage Ukraine’s gas pipelines. He said this
should help increase their throughput capacity. In exchange for the
consortium, Ukraine should receive a “just” price for its gas from
Russia, Yanukovych said. Gazprom reportedly hailed Yanukovych’s
initiative, saying that the “Belarusian option” may be applied to
Ukraine. Belarus sold 50 percent of its gas transit network to Gazprom
in 2006 in exchange for cheap gas. However, discounts for Belarus are
only temporary (Kommersant-Ukraine, January 22).

Tymoshenko lambasted Yanukovych for his statements on the consortium.
Addressing local officials in Kyiv Region, which is her stronghold, she
said that the consortium creation would be tantamount to “stealing the
gas pipeline from Ukraine and full liquidation of the transit network.”
Tymoshenko said that she would not allow such a consortium, adding that
the gas transit network would remain state-owned. She estimated the
value of the network at “hundreds of billions of dollars,” which was
probably an exaggeration. Tymoshenko said that when she replaced
Yanukovych as prime minister in 2007, she thwarted his plans to lease
Ukraine’s gas transit network to Russia (UNIAN, January 23).

Yanukovych also suggested that Ukraine should participate in the Russian
Nord Stream and South Stream gas pipeline projects, which are aimed at
decreasing Russia’s dependence on the Ukrainian transit route.
Yanukovych suggested this could compensate Ukraine for losses from a
decrease in gas transit due to the imminent launch of the two pipelines
(Ukrainski Novyny, January 20). In this case, Yanukovych apparently
lobbies for the interests of his crony, the steel tycoon Rinat Akhmetov
whose Khartsyzk Pipe Plant could supply large-diameter pipes for the
Russian projects.

It is interesting that the former central bank governor, Serhy Tyhypko,
to whom Tymoshenko promised the post of prime minister if she were
elected president, is on Yanukovych’s side as far as the gas trade is
concerned. Tyhypko, like Yanukovych, believes that the gas contracts
should be revised and that Russia should obtain a share in Ukraine’s gas
pipelines (Ukraina TV, January 13). Speaking after the first round of
the presidential election in which he came third with 13 percent after
Yanukovych and Tymoshenko, Tyhypko suggested that 25 percent of the
shares in a consortium to manage the pipelines should belong to Gazprom,
25 percent to investors from the European Union, and the rest to Ukraine
(1+1 TV, January 17).

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