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Gas and fleet agreements with Russia - chance for economic in Ukraine
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28 April 2010
On April 27, Ukrainian Parliament ratified agreed a deal with Moscow to host the Russian Black Sea Fleet until 2042 in return for a 30% discount on gas imports. Yet just three weeks earlier, Ukrainian president Yanukovych had slapped a deputy prime minister on the wrist for suggesting that Ukraine could join a union with Russia and Belarus. So who is Mr Yanukovych? A president to take Ukraine toward Europe? Or a man with an eye on his country’s old imperial master in Moscow? The answer could be both.
Good relations with Russia tend to be viewed as exclusive to good relations with the EU. But Yanukovych has repeatedly argued otherwise. And some experts suggest that the recent sharp upward turn in the relations with Russia should not be seen as a threat, but an opportunity. "Tensions with Russia harmed relations with the European Union," said Yevhen Marchuk, a former prime minister and defence minister, at the International Security Forum in Lviv on April 16.
Top administration officials, as well as the president himself, have been keen to stress that agreement with Russia is pragmatic, and has its limits, while deepening relations with Europe remains the strategic goal. "The EU is the number-one priority," said Leonid Kozhara, a foreign policy advisor to Yanukovych, at the Dragon Capital investment conference at the end of March. "Russia is the number-two priority."
The concession was driven by economic necessity. Yanukovych negotiated a $40bn cut in Ukraine's gas bill to Russia
As well Russia will pay Ukraine $100 million a year for the lease of the base for the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Denisov has said.
"The signed agreement stipulates a new rent for the Black Sea Fleet starting from 2017. Russia will pay $100 million annually," Denisov said in the lower chamber of Russia's parliament on Tuesday. Apart from this, Ukraine will get also additional funds from the reduced price for Russian natural gas, he added.
Source:
http://businessneweurope.eu
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