A new gas deal approaches
2012 was welcomed with intense gas negotiations going on between Ukraine and Russia. The current state of play appears to be heading toward a considerable decrease of the Russian gas price in exchange for control of a chunk of Ukraine’s energy assets including the gas pipeline network and gas reserves. Both teams of negotiators have brought rather powerful arguments to the table.
President Viktor Yanukovych, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Energy Minister Yuriy Boiko underline that — even with a discount — the current gas price: $416 per 1,000 cubic meters in the first quarter of the year is unreasonably high. Ukraine can also search for alternative lower cost energy sources, increase the development of domestic gas to 22 billion cubic meters per year and thereby minimize consumption of Russian gas in 2012 down to 27 billion cubic meters.
The Russian side, represented by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Gazprom chief Alexiy Miller, threaten to impose penalty sanctions due to Ukraine’s low consumption of gas in 2011. Experts say Ukraine could be charged $8 billion. Russian negotiators say that a reduction of consumption down to 27 billion cubic meters is impossible, due to the pre-existing contract, which provides for the possibility of a reduction in 2012 to minimum of 41.6 billion cubic meters. Russia has also received a permit for the construction of the South Stream Gas Pipeline from Turkey.
With a new gas agreement between Russia and Ukraine coming, the EU has reminded Ukraine of its obligations under the Energy Community Treaty, which the country joined on Feb. 1. Gunther Oettinger, EU commissioner for energy, stated that the EU has agreed a joint strategy for the further integration of the Ukrainian energy market with EU and they plan to start implementation in the nearest future.
Thus, once again a gas issue is the determining factor for Ukraine’s future. This issue may decide whether Ukraine falls into political dependence on Russia or if its economy will collapse. History shows that gas negotiations often lack transparency. Ukrainians might well wake up to find out that they lost key energy assets, and that it is too late to change anything.
People First Comment: One has to ask the question why Ukraine is paying so much more for its gas than anybody else. Ukraine is Russia’s third largest customer, yet Ukraine is paying approximately $216 per 1,000 cubic meters (52 percent) more than China and $66 per 1,000 cubic meters (16 percent) more than the EU. The price that Ukraine pays does not include the transit costs and therefore the real differential with Europe is appreciably higher. Ukraine is Russia’s only client that is paying at this level, while all the rest are closer to the price being paid by the EU. Whilst serious questions need to be asked as to why Yulia Tymoshenko, as prime minister then, agreed to be tied into such a one-sided contract, it would also seem logical to ask who is benefiting from such a high gas price today.
Gas has been the foundation of many a fortune in both Russia and Ukraine and, without any degree of transparency, it would be acceptable to believe that this contract is as dirty as all the rest. If this is the case then who, since Tymoshenko’s imprisonment, is now benefitting and is this the real reason why Gazprom appears to be playing such hardball.
It is much quoted that Gazprom has its sights set on the Ukrainian gas transit system but this does not make sense as Europe is set to cut its consumption of Russian gas from 80 percent to 30 percent by 2020 and this is precisely the volume capacity of the brand new Nord Stream pipeline. So one has to ask why Russia would want an aging pipeline network that needs billions in investment when, by the time the refurbishment is completed, there is unlikely to be a customer at the other end. Perhaps this is just another diversion to stop people asking too many questions.
Eastern Ukraine holding politicians to account
Early in January, the people of Donetsk, natural comrades of the president and the Party of Regions, again demonstrated that their attitude towards the current government has substantially changed. This time they have been distributing posters in public places that list unfulfilled election promises with “not executed” stamps. Every poster has a verdict on the bottom: “fire this official on grounds of incompetence.” Some posters read “stone is the weapon of the proletariat,” hinting perhaps, that the protection of rights requires the use of force. The people in of eastern Ukraine are starting to prove their civic awareness. They have started to compare promises with actions, putting aside regional solidarity. Activists distributing posters say on the Internet that their goal is to break through the unquestioning support of current government by the people of Donetsk.
Donetsk authorities are worried, not because of the anti-governmental posters directly, but because they do not know who the initiators are. They encourage open dialogue with the government. The Committee of Voters of Ukraine has stated that more and more civic groups in Ukraine are demanding that the governing authorities be held to account for the election promises they made. Back in 2010, the High Administrative Court of Ukraine refused to declare unlawful Yanukovych’s inactivity regarding his election promises; a case that arose from an action filed by an opposition member. The court overruled the action against the President as nothing more than agitation. At least we can commend the people of eastern Ukraine for pushing through regional solidarity and starting to voice criticism of parliamentary actions.
People First Comment: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time… Unfortunately for the president and his team, he was too convincing in his speeches to the good people of Donetsk and they followed his every word believing that their man would lead them to nirvana. Today the reality is slowly sinking in. There is no nirvana… there is no golden future. It was all just a front designed to enable Yanukovych to win the presidency.
The people of Donetsk are, as a woman scorned, not going to accept excuses or apologies. He has betrayed their loyalty and their trust and that is unforgivable. Donetsk, like any mining city, is a hard place where communities exist through a close brotherhood. It is this brotherhood that has enabled them to live through the hardship and the loss common to mining communities. It is not a brotherhood you betray no matter how powerful you believe yourself to be. If the president does not find a way to appease this anger, then the miners and steel workers of the Donbas could well be the seeds of his downfall.
EU keeps up pressure as Oleksandr Tymoshenko flees
The Czech Republic has granted asylum to Oleksandr Tymoshenko, husband of Yulia Tymoshenko. The Czech Republic’s Interior Ministry explained that he was granted asylum on Jan. 6, following his request two months earlier. The media say that he was recognized as a political refugee, which guarantees him international protection. The daughter of Yulia Tymoshenko believes that had her father stayed, he would have been arrested and imprisoned for political reasons. She noted that the whole Tymoshenko family is under huge pressure.
Having received asylum in Czech Republic, Olexander Tymoshenko publicly announced that he had to do so, citing persecution from the Ukrainian governing authorities. He plans to register ‘Batkivschyna’ as a civil group in Czech Republic. He met with the former minister of economy of Ukraine Danilishyn who received asylum in Czech Republic a year ago. At the same time the Presidential Administration of Ukraine hopes that granting political asylum to Tymoshenko’s husband will not hurt Ukrainian-Czech relations as stated by presidential adviser Hanna Herman.
Despite the passing of the new year, Tymoshenko;s case remains one of determining factors in Ukraine-EU relations. The European Union has made it clear that they will not silently accept the imprisonment of the former prime minister. So, unless the government makes concessions, relations between Ukraine and EU will most likely be chilled.
People First Comment: Ask yourself: with 98 percent of prosecutions resulting in conviction, your wife in prisona and under investigation for a seemingly endless stream of allegations, some of which relate to cases closed 15 years ago, and with the declarations of dozens of world leaders including the Dalai Lama unable to afford her any respite, would you trust your personal security to the Ukrainian legal system?
Under Soviet rule, legislation was designed to enforce whatever the party willed. Whereas much of the world relies on the concept of innocent until proven guilty, Ukraine’s deputies seem to feel it unnecessary to abandon legislation written nearly a century ago for the purposes of dealing decisively with dissenters, however vaguely identified.
Is it any wonder that so much legal defense in Ukraine is outsourced to institutions within the EU? In the first year of the Yanukovych’s presidency, Ukrainian citizens submitted more than 10,000 cases to the European Court of Human Rights, an institution which recently put the case of Tymoshenko vs. Ukraine on fast-track priority.
The pure volume of applications can be attributed partially to the success of the cases that get through: one recent case involved a Ukrainian who had been hospitalized following a police abduction, which was utterly disregarded by the Ukrainian legal system at every level, whom the court demanded be remunerated 15,000 euros by the state.
Europe’s principles will not be compromised by association with a regime uncommitted to the rule of law; neither can its institutions bear the weight of righting every Ukrainian injustice. Europe will eventually tire of the Ukraine’s Janus foreign policy; let us hope that the authorities bow to pressure before it is too late.
Murdering justice
The death of student Igor Indylo as a result of militia brutality is again in the spotlight in Ukraine. The student died in May 2010 of severe injuries he received in custody. Despite substantial evidence, Kyiv district court issued the militia officers accused of the student’s murder with mild punishments without imprisonment. Both officers were charged with minor negligence that led to the death of 19-year-old Igor Indylo. One of them received a five-year suspended sentence, the other was granted amnesty by the court. Indylo’s family has already appealed the court’s decision. Ukraines’s human rights commissioner Nina Karpachova also plans to appeal the decision of Kyiv district court on the case. She made a statement in which she insisted that the decision is cancelled and that the case is sent for further investigation.
The selective nature of Ukrainian justice has been noticed by many international organizations. Representatives of Amnesty International state that the Ukrainian authorities must initiate a new investigation of student’s death in custody. John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, stressed that the decision of Ukrainian court on the case shows a shocking disregard for human life. The Ukrainian system of justice has clearly demonstrated to the citizens of Ukraine, its position on militia brutality.
People First Comment: Firstly, that which hardly needs saying: this is an atrocious miscarriage of justice in which murder has been deemed insufficient cause for a jail sentence. Tragic and infuriating though this case is, it is in fact indicative of a more fundamental issue.
A recent Ukrainian Interior Ministry survey demonstrated that 80 percent of militia officers feel it is impossible to maintain even the most basic standards of living from their meager salaries, over which 25 percent of the national militia claims to be ready to resign. If 80 percent of the militia claims it is impossible to live on official salaries, and 75 percent of those claim not to be ready to quit, there must be some alternative perks filling in the gaps.
This case appears to be a sickening after-effect of those very perks: the attitude that a position of authority grants the bearer freedom beyond the law and impunity from prosecution. The upside for the government has been unquestioning obedience for very low pay; with militia salaries subsidized through the extortion of the public via bribes, or shall we say shadow-taxes.
With the sole mechanism of law enforcement positioned above the law there are no effective systems for curtailing the behavior of the law enforcers themselves. To meet calls from Europe for the rule of law to be upheld, the government would have to find space in its already austere 2012 budget for substantial pay rises across the public sector. Otherwise Ukraine is stuck with a fundamental problem: Nobody is watching the watchmen; and if they were, the watchmen would quit.
Viktor Tkachuk is chief executive officer of the People First Foundation, which seeks to strengthen Ukrainian democracy. The organization’s website is: www.peoplefirst.org.ua and the e-mail address is: [email protected]
