Inside News on Odessa and Ukraine
You will remember back in early March I mentioned a cunning plan from the government of Ukraine to buy gas from RWE in Germany and reverse the flow of sections of the transport system in order to import it, thus reducing the amount of contractually very expensive Russian gas? Well, Naftogas Ukraine has quietly signed [...]
The Ukrainian loss making State owned behemoth that is Naftogaz Ukraine is about to get broken down, reorganised but not, as the EBRD have stated is necessary over the years, privatised. Actually that may not be quite accurate, there are certain parts of Naftogaz that are now legally banned from privatisation and others that quite [...]
Now as you know, generally I stay away from the “headlining MSM” media news about Ukraine. Occasionally I don’t use the news as a springboard at all, particularly when I feel like a meander through policy, effective, ineffective or counterproductive thereof, negotiations and diplomacy, positions, needs and interests, interests verses values and all that terribly [...]
OK. I thought about the final paragraphs of yesterday’s blog entry and I would like to ponder them a little more. Specifically of the questions at the end, which were posed to nobody in particular, let’s think about the organised actors involved and what they are involved in. This post would be far too lengthy [...]
As I have written here before many times about NGOs, civil society and Ukrainian academia, occasionally in a supportive way when writing about specific individual NGOs, but also in a robust and critical way when writing about them in general, I should not let the new radically and dramatically better Ukrainian laws relating to NGOs [...]
In the past few days, maybe a week or so, pharmaceuticals, the costs of medicines and quality thereof, have come under the critical eye of the government. It proposes to interfere in the market and drive down the cost of medicines to the public. To be fair it does have several levers to do so, [...]
OK. I am tired. Late to bed Saturday night due to the tradition of being in Orthodox churches at an ungodly hour for Easter, followed by far too much food, far too much wine and far too much family yesterday, again finishing at an ungodly hour. I will leave you with this very insightful article [...]
Whilst the government struggles to identify and package up parts of the infamous behemoth called Naftogaz for privatisation as recommended by the EBRD, it seems to be having little difficulty in deciding on other parts of the energy infrastructure to be privatised. This week a law passed (with 243 votes in favour) to privatise the [...]
Odds-bodkins! It for weeks I have been meaning to post this and then something else took precedents and now it is almost too late! Tomorrow, Committee of the Regions of the EU (Bâtiment Jacques Delors, Rue Belliard 99-101, B – 1040 Brussels – Belgium), 0930 – 1300, the Dnipropetrovsk investment roadshow takes place. (Actually there are [...]