The Cabinet’s activity casts doubt on Prime-Minister Yanukovych’s statements on crackdown on corruption and establishing an attractive investment climate in Ukraine.
It came from Steven Pifer, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Radio Liberty reports.
“If you say about setting up a favorable investment climate, why you’ve restricted grain exports, having deterred investments in agriculture,” he wonders.
“The PM has made some loud statements in regard to combating corruption. But the last events showed that the State Taxation Service was returning to the policy of favoritism. So, the government should combat corruption there as well,” Pifer remarks.
He is also puzzled by the fact that the gas intermediary RosUkrEnergo still remains in the shadow. Nobody actually knows who owns it and how it works.
As regards the foreign policy, Ukraine risks to lose interest of NATO following the latest statements of its PM. As was reported earlier, Yanukovych offered to put relations with NATO on hold during his visit to Brussels.
This week’s visit of the PM to Washington D.C. did not clarify his stance towards NATO as well.
“President Yushchenko clearly said that he sought to join NATO Action Plan. But Yanukovych claimed yesterday he backed Ukraine-NATO cooperation but was not ready to fulfill the Action Plan,” the former Ambassador underlines.
This disagreement between the President and the government weakens Ukraine’s position in the eyes of Americans. “It seems like a competition in the foreign affairs that doesn’t lend credibility to both of them,” Pifer notes.
Steven Pifer was a co-author of the Coalition Memorandum on Safety and Democracy in Ukraine, sponsored by US-Ukraine Foundation seeing Yanukovych’s visit to Washington D.C.
Ukrayinska Pravda
