Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich issued so many promises in the last days of a count-down to a winner-take-all vote on 7 February, including about energy relations with Moscow and the EU that they will be definitely be held accountable for at least some of them.
Front-runner Yanukovich, who lost to President Viktor Yushchenko during the Orange Revolution in 2004, said on 27 January he would ask Russia to commit long-term gas flows across Ukraine in exchange for guarantees of stable transit, while ruling out the sale of transit pipelines. “My point of view has not changed since 2004,” he said.” I supported the creation of the gas transportation consortium, with Russia as a supplier, Europe as a consumer, and Ukraine as a transiting country.”
Yanukovich also said he wanted Ukraine to help build the Nord and South Stream pipelines, planned by Russia to transit gas avoiding states like Ukraine and Belarus after a pricing dispute with neighbors led to gas cut-offs to EU consumers. He has also pledged to revise the gas deal signed by Russia and Ukraine last year that ended the dispute.
Yanukovich seems to be missing the point. “For Ukraine to be involved in building Nord Stream and South Stream is an absolutely stupid idea to my mind. Okay, Nord Stream has nothing to do with Ukraine, but South Stream! This is a bypass,” a senior Ukrainian diplomat told New Europe on 4 February speaking on condition of anonymity.” In fact what they need now is only financial support, but we do not have the financial reserves for the bla bla projects.”
Yanukovich and Tymoshenko want to mend ties with Russia, supplier of most of Ukraine’s energy, which took a turn for the worse under Yushchenko.
Nevertheless, Tymoshenko, who earlier in her career earned the nickname of the “Gas Princess,” struck a more nationalist tone, saying she would seek to maintain control of Ukraine’s gas transit system. Russia had said it could increase supplies via Ukraine if it was allowed to co-own and manage gas pipelines, but Ukraine adopted a law forbidding their privatization.
Yanukovich supports the idea of starting talks with Russia and the EU on the possible creation of a gas transportation consortium in order to increase the reliability of Russian gas transit to Europe. “There’re approaches to set up something under the international regulation and if we adapt more legislation, especially in the energy sphere in Ukraine, I’m sure the time will come for setting up something like that,” the Ukrainian diplomat told New Europe.
The diplomat also noted that Ukraine needs to improve its internal legislation to protect foreign investments. Ukraine has been working with the EU, international donors and financial institutions regarding the modernization of the gas transit system although EU efforts have slowed due to impeding European Commission. Richard Morningstar, US special envoy to the newly independent states of the Caucasus, Caspian, and Central Asia, said in a speech at the Center for American Progress in Washington on 28 January: “Improving Ukraine’s investment climate could attract foreign companies who could help Ukraine to develop its vast oil and gas reserves and strengthen its energy security. I have talked with several major energy companies who would love to invest in Ukraine, but won’t because of the existing investment climate.”

 KGeropoulos@NEurope.eu