New Ukrainian PM Issues Ultimatum on Natural Gas
The formation of an Orange governing coalition was officially announced in Ukraine yesterday. It will consist of the Yulia Timoshenko Bloc, Our Ukraine and the Socialist Party. Yulia Timoshenko will occupy the post of prime minister. She has already announced that agreements with Russia and Turkmenistan on natural gas, which were signed by former prime minister Yury Ekhanurov and supported by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, will be reconsidered. Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov called her intentions “the path to a new gas crisis.”
Our Ukraine member Adam Martynyuk announced the formation of the coalition yesterday morning in the Supreme Rada. Members of the Party of the Regions immediately called into doubt the authenticity of the signatures on the agreement. A proposal to check the signatures was voted down, however. The Supreme Rada was then adjourned until June 27. Under the Ukrainian Constitution that came into force at the beginning of this year, a parliamentary coalition forms a coalition and proposes a candidate for prime minister to the president. The Supreme Rada appoints the ministers of defense and foreign affairs and the prime minister appoints the remaining ministers. The distribution of the ministers' positions among the members of the coalition was set in the coalition agreement, however, and it is considered sure that Timoshenko will regain the prime minister's position.
The Yulia Timoshenko Bloc will receive full control over the government's economic sector, as well as the presidency of the Naftogaz Ukrainy oil and gas company, the state property fund, the state committee on radio and television broadcasting and the tax and customs services. Our Ukraine will control the security sector, including the interior and justice ministries. Since the Constitution stipulates that the president nominate the defense and foreign ministers, they will also be under Our Ukraine control. That means that Ukraine's orientation toward European Union and NATO membership will remain unchanged.
Timoshenko stated in the corridor of the Supreme Rada that “all agreements on natural gas supplies to Ukraine today require additional deep revision, reconsideration and restructuring within a friendly regime of new agreement relations with Russia and Turkmenistan.” Thus, she has shown that she still intends to pursue policies independent of Yushchenko.
Mustafa Nayem, Kiev; Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of June 23, 2006
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