Kiev’s hastily assembled, post-coup coalitions couldn’t hold, and Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk threw in the towel last Thursday. On his way out, news stories said, the PM expressed his “disappointment with Ukrainian parliament’s decision to reject a bill that allows the government to hand over up to 49 percent of the country’s gas transport system to investors from the European Union and the United States.”
In other words, what the US and the EU have got themselves up to in Ukraine isn’t so much a demented, madhouse mirror set of policies built on bluster and gross deceit as it is a high-powered burglary.
Ukraine should craft attractive terms to facilitate foreign investment, especially of those technologically-advanced energy companies capable of locating and developing whatever energy assets Ukraine does enjoy. But what does foreign ownership of 49% of the nation’s functioning gas transport system have to do with energy exploration and development?
For 23 years, succeeding Ukrainian governments have survived in large part by playing off EU-US and Russian interests. A fickle electorate has repeatedly endorsed whichever political players appeared to have the greatest potential as extortionists. (In 2009, then Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko cut an underappreciated gas deal with the Russians and was rewarded with imprisonment.)
But now, we learn favored US and EU interests intend to snatch away for their own pockets the single card the Ukrainians have had to play, i.e. 100% ownership of the national gas transport system. Without full control of the gas transport structure the country inherited from the defunct Soviet Union in national hands, Ukraine will be of no particular interest except to Nato, which majorities amongst all Ukrainians have repeatedly stated they do not wish to join.
The 2% advantage Ukraine would retain under the proposed sale will easily be finessed over time by the many billions in initial and future IMF loans any Ukrainian government will need to retain power. Trading the impairment of Ukraine’s single asset of multinational interest for $17 billion in loans now, an ongoing infestation of IMF and associated multilateral parasites, a trade deal of no consequence, since Europe has no need for Ukrainian manufacturing, and logistical support for a bellicose military alliance’s misadventures from the frontline is not much of a deal. But it was no improvisation. It was, instead, a carefully planned EU-US double-cross.
Complete story at - Stop! Thief! Stop! — The Looting of Ukraine
In other words, what the US and the EU have got themselves up to in Ukraine isn’t so much a demented, madhouse mirror set of policies built on bluster and gross deceit as it is a high-powered burglary.
Ukraine should craft attractive terms to facilitate foreign investment, especially of those technologically-advanced energy companies capable of locating and developing whatever energy assets Ukraine does enjoy. But what does foreign ownership of 49% of the nation’s functioning gas transport system have to do with energy exploration and development?
For 23 years, succeeding Ukrainian governments have survived in large part by playing off EU-US and Russian interests. A fickle electorate has repeatedly endorsed whichever political players appeared to have the greatest potential as extortionists. (In 2009, then Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko cut an underappreciated gas deal with the Russians and was rewarded with imprisonment.)
But now, we learn favored US and EU interests intend to snatch away for their own pockets the single card the Ukrainians have had to play, i.e. 100% ownership of the national gas transport system. Without full control of the gas transport structure the country inherited from the defunct Soviet Union in national hands, Ukraine will be of no particular interest except to Nato, which majorities amongst all Ukrainians have repeatedly stated they do not wish to join.
The 2% advantage Ukraine would retain under the proposed sale will easily be finessed over time by the many billions in initial and future IMF loans any Ukrainian government will need to retain power. Trading the impairment of Ukraine’s single asset of multinational interest for $17 billion in loans now, an ongoing infestation of IMF and associated multilateral parasites, a trade deal of no consequence, since Europe has no need for Ukrainian manufacturing, and logistical support for a bellicose military alliance’s misadventures from the frontline is not much of a deal. But it was no improvisation. It was, instead, a carefully planned EU-US double-cross.
Complete story at - Stop! Thief! Stop! — The Looting of Ukraine
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