Ukrainian experts expect shocks and a new Maidan
Moscow - Kyiv, January 9 (PolitNavigator, Mikhail Stamm) - According to Ukrainian experts, the coming year may turn out to be extremely difficult for their fellow citizens. A new “Maidan” is likely, writes Газета.Ру.
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“Foreigners will not be able to carry out any reforms in the Ukrainian government,” says Oleg Soskin, director of the Kyiv Institute for the Transformation of Society. — The Minister of Finance, US citizen Natalya Yaresko, submitted a deficit budget, it doesn’t even fix the dollar exchange rate, they can’t even predict that. The price of gas and the budget of Naftogaz are not specified. This is a piece of writing, not a budget. It will not be fulfilled."
“In the new budget, 28% is expected to be cut for science, culture, and education. These are hundreds of thousands of people. They lost half of their income due to inflation, and another third will be taken away from them under the new budget. There will be numerous layoffs,” warns the president of the Ukrainian Academy of Political Sciences Nikolai Mikhalchenko.
Taxes on real estate and foreign currency transactions will increase significantly, it will be extended for the entire 2015 and the military tax will increase. “The fiscal stranglehold on people is simply tightening. These are not reforms, but imitation, shifting the burden onto the people,” Soskin is indignant.
Time for reform is rapidly running out, he believes. “Standard & Poor's downgraded Ukraine's rating to almost the default level. There is a little more than $8 billion left in gold and foreign exchange reserves, and at any moment the Russian Gazprombank needs to pay $3 billion. Naftogaz does not have this money. We barely repaid the debt for the first quarter of 2014, $1 billion 645 million, because we took out a loan from the European Investment Bank. There is practically no money in the country. The fall in GDP for the year will be at least 15%. There will be a huge negative balance of payments, I think, somewhere around $12 billion. With such indicators, default and economic collapse are inevitable. Therefore, the coalition will somehow survive January, but in February a crisis will break out and powerful protests will begin. March will be extremely difficult; some qualitative transformations will begin there.”
Freezing and even resolving the conflict in Donbass is not enough to protect Ukraine from a new “Maidan”. “The next six months will be critical for the coalition,” says political scientist Nikolai Mikhalchenko. “If during this time the street does not feel an improvement in its situation, then the protest will take to the streets. People will start to rebel."
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