Last week Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych predicted that next year gas for Ukraine will cost $130 for 1.000m3. “We’ll see in October what the price for gas will be. But we have grounds to think that it will be $130,” Yanukovych said before convening a government meeting. He noted that the “price of gas in 2007 in our neighbors’ countries — Moldova, the Baltic countries, Georgia, and Azerbaijan — is almost $200.”
Yanukovych also stood up for the average citizen: “We shouldn’t involve the population in problems in these spheres. The question of establishing tariffs must be transparent. Next year we have to develop a system that could produce a transparent price-setting system.” In parliament Deputy Prime Minister Andrii Kliuev picked up on this topic, announcing that the Cabinet of Ministers considers it possible to reduce the price of natural gas for consumers by 75 hryvnias. According to him, the price will be 339 hryvnias for 1.000m3 of gas. Kliuev underlined that the decrease would affect 6.8 million Ukrainian families. Appearing on the Fifth Channel, Fuel and Energy Minister Yurii Boyko stated that the price of gas for consumers would decrease, but only for three months. “The calculations are continuing, but the fact that the price of consumer gas will decrease is true, in keeping with the level adopted by the previous government,” he emphasized.
Our Ukraine is probably not pleased by the “successes” of the anti-crisis coalition. “If we are talking about reducing prices, then the new price should exist for the entire duration of the Yanukovych government,” MP Mykola Katerynchuk said. “Half-measures will not do. The Party of Regions was going to the elections with certain political and economic programs, and they should be fulfilled now.”
According to Katerynchuk, complaining that the previous government allegedly destroyed Ukraine’s gas sector is no solution. “All governments express their dissatisfaction with the previous one’s work, ascribing to it their own defeats. “Why did they first try to dismiss Yekhanurov’s government for the $95 price and then acknowledge that this was the government greatest success? We can do the same by telling Yanukovych that the Party of Regions tempted the country with the promise of $95 gas price for 1.000m3.”
Still, it should be admitted that Gazprom’s attitude to the current Ukrainian government is more loyal, if you consider that Russia wants to quadruple its prices even for Belarus whose leaders announced last week that they will sever relations with Russia if it hikes the price of gas.
Why is Ukraine receiving preferences? After all, everyone knows that the Russian government is using the blue fuel as an instrument of foreign policy to achieve its strategic aims. According to experts, one of the reasons should be sought in Yanukovych’s statements in Brussels, where he announced that Ukraine is temporarily refusing to join to the Action Plan for NATO membership.
Yanukovych statements surprised only President Yushchenko and Our Ukraine. “With his refusal he also removed a mountain from the shoulders of those alliance members, who consider the preservation of the best possible relations with Russia to be the most important thing and who are ready to acknowledge the post-Soviet space as the exclusive sphere of Russian influence. This time everything was done accurately by Ukraine itself. There was no need to cheat or dupe it, or use diplomatic justifications or tricks,” wrote the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.
There is another aspect to consider. European countries are already troubled by future gas deliveries from Russia. Jonathan Stern, Director of Gas Research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies says: “Russia’s problems with transit countries are mainly of a political and economic nature, and they are hard to solve in a short period of time. During this time there will be a tense situation in Europe in connection with Russia’s gas exports, especially during the winter season.”
This “tense situation” will not have the best impact on Gazprom’s image. Russia probably doesn’t want a repetition of the January 2006 events, when the gas war between Russia and Ukraine affected practically all European countries. The second reason for loyalty may lie here.
