On Friday's 'Shuster Live' programme, former president Yushchenko expained why Ukraine is paying far to much for Russian gas. He used a marker and board, drawing complex, and i.m.o. very poorly drawn 'back-of-an envelope' diagrams and figures. For someone who claimed he was 'one of the best five bankers in the world' it was all very unprofessional - terrible white-board work. Has he not heard of Powerpoint?
Naturally all of her enemies claim Yulia Tymoshenko is to blame for the dreadful 2009 gas deal.
But what none of them can explain is how, under the same circumstances, they would have done better.
It seem to me the only way this could be done is if either Putin confesses he bribed Tymoshenko to do a bad deal [solid evidence of this, rather than conjecture would need to be produced], or Putin openly declares that another Ukrainian interlocutor would have been granted a better deal. Either are hardly likely.
What Yushchenko should have said is: if you buy from a monopolist supplier, you always get screwed, particularly if you are one of the world's biggest consumers of the product being purchased.The Russians are smarter, they have spend billions on North Stream - to deny Ukraine being a monopolist transitter of gas....Like the meerkat in this amusing advert says: "Seempels".
Azarov also had to answer the question whether he had authority to sign an agreement on the FTA. Hinted that if Tymoshenko tried for abuse of authority, it is not worth Azarov to prepare for such a fate.
ReplyDelete"The Government of Ukraine at its meeting gave me this power. Everything as it should. The President of Ukraine has given me such authority in its decision. So I acted strictly in accordance with the powers that were given to me" - he said.
Quite - if a deal's controversial and not ideal then do as Azarov and "act strictly in accordance with the power etc etc" and don't take it all on yourself. She, however, she went solo, faking cabinet approval leaving her own man at Naftogas fooled and not even giving the president a copy of the deal, made him look like a superflous idiot. Of course, if she'd won the Presdidential elections then everything would have been fine.
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