EU agrees to support EBRD funds for Ukraine (10/01/00)

EU agrees to support EBRD funds for Ukraine

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - President Leonid Kuchma announced in Paris on September 15 that France had agreed to support Ukraine's request for funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to complete two nuclear reactors if Ukraine continues to reform its national power grid.

The Ukrainian president also said that he had convinced the European Union to consider a $100 million loan to Ukraine to cover the cost of additional fuel supplies to run its thermal-electric facilities, which will be essential to cover Ukraine's energy needs during the transitional period between the closure of the Chornobyl facility and the start-up of new reactors in Khmelnytskyi and Rivne.

"Ukraine will receive financing from the West for the completion of compensating energy sources, which is an important precondition for the closing of the Chornobyl atomic energy station," said Mr. Kuchma, according to the government newspaper Uriadovyi Kurier.

While putting Western leaders on notice that he is still awaiting the fulfillment of promises made in 1995 at the Denver meeting of the leaders of the G-7 industrialized nations, Mr. Kuchma assured the world that Ukraine would not renege on its promise to shut down the damaged facility by December 15.

The president spoke during the second day of a two-day visit to Paris as the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the European Union-Ukraine summit, where he held discussions with French President Jacques Chirac, whose country this year holds the rotating chairmanship of the EU, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and European Commission Chairman Romano Prodi.

President Kuchma said during a press conference in Kyiv after his return that for the first time he felt that real progress had been made and that Europe finally is listening to Ukraine's needs.

"This was the first summit that occurred in an absolutely open atmosphere," said Mr. Kuchma.

Earlier, in Paris, during his closing press conference with Mr. Chirac, he had said he had found a warm working atmosphere in his two days there.

"I can say that I have discovered real friends and partners, with whom it is now possible to discuss the most difficult of problems," said Mr. Kuchma. He explained that he was heartened as well by the EU's decision to consider status for Ukraine as an economy in transition.

President Chirac, for his part, explained that the summit had opened up a new stage in the rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU, and that the European organization is pleased with Ukraine's reinvigorated reform process. He announced that the EU is ready to support Ukraine's application for entry into the World Trade Organization.

"The Euro-Ukrainian partnership has reached a new level," said Mr. Chirac, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Mr. Prodi of the European Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, promised Ukraine that it would resume funding the country within the framework of its TACIS program just as soon as the International Monetary Fund expresses support for Ukraine's financial reforms. He said that, given the vigorous manner in which the latest reforms are taking place, the IMF go-ahead for the resumption of its own EFF program is only a matter of time.

Topics of discussion with Mr. Prodi also included the development of measures to create a free trade zone between Ukraine and the EU, which met with some success, according to Roman Shpek, Ukraine's representative to the EU. He said the two sides "have reached a certain understanding" and that they would soon sign an agreement on quota-free trade in textiles for 2001.

Both Mr. Shpek and President Kuchma underscored during the summit that membership in the European Union is Ukraine's ultimate goal. As Mr. Shpek told Interfax-Ukraine, "Our mottos is: from cooperation to integration. Ukraine sees itself in the EU."

In a joint statement issued at the close of the summit, both sides underscored the importance of the democratic character of political reforms in Ukraine and noted that the plan calls from completion of reforms by the end of 2000.

The document also pointed to the substantial contribution by EU member-states to the Chornobyl Shelter Fund at the conference of donors held in Berlin at the beginning of the summer. At the time EU countries promised to provide a total of 430 million Euros to cover the costs of rebuilding the crumbling concrete sarcophagus that covers the destroyed fourth reactor at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.

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