"This is the first serious result of cooperation between the president of Ukraine, the democratic parliamentary coalition and the new government," Yushchenko said in comments published on his website.

Yushchenko ally Yulia Tymoshenko secured passage of the budget through parliament on Friday, 10 days after being elected prime minister with one vote to spare in parliament.

Yushchenko's Our Ukraine and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc together secured a narrow majority of seats in September elections to unseat their Russia-backed rival Viktor Yanukovych from the prime minister's office.

Tymoshenko said a 2008 budget deficit of 18.5 billion hryvnias (3.66 billion dollars, 2.5 billion euros) would be financed in part by privatisations, the Interfax news agency reported.

The budget envisages income of 215.36 billion hryvnias (42.6 billion dollars, 29 billion euros) and expenses of 235.43 billion hryvnias (46.6 billion dollars, 31.7 billion euros), the news agency reported.

The budget is based on GDP growth of 6.8 percent and inflation of 9.6 percent, Interfax said.

Published in DPA

Ukraine's sharply-divided parliament overcame a critical financial and political hurdle on Friday to pass into law the 2008 government budget. The polarised house voted 235 out of 450 in favour of increased government assistance to low-income families, reduced tax load on small business, and additional collections from big business.

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Published in Reuters
By: Natalya Zinets

Ukraine's parliament on Friday gave its approval on a second and final reading to a 2008 budget revised by the new government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

A total of 235 deputies voted in favour, nine more than the 226 required for passage in the 450-seat assembly. Debate on the document proceeded for several hours after the assembly had given its initial approval earlier in the day. Read More...

Published in AP

The Ukrainian Parliament approved next year's budget Friday - an ambitious plan submitted by the new Cabinet that also projects a bloated deficit.

The vote came 10 days after lawmakers named Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution, the new prime minister by the narrowest possible margin. Her appointment followed months of tense coalition talks and reflected deep divisions in the former Soviet nation.

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Published in UNIAN

Cabinet of Ministers has unanimously approved a Draft State Budget for 2008. “The Budget is unanimously approved,” Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko stated after the Government sitting, according to the government’s press-office.

The Head of Government noted that 2008 Draft Budget of Ukraine provides compensation of payouts to depositors of the Oshchadbank of the former USSR totalling nearly 20 billion UAH, 6 billion UAH of which intended to be directed at monetary payouts.

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Published in UNIAN

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko stated that the Cabinet of Ministers is interested in making the Government Action Program a uniting document for the whole Parliament.

According to the government’s press-office, Yulia Tymoshenko disclosed this while meeting with the leader of the Party of Regions faction Viktor Yanukovych.

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Published in UNIAN

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko stresses that 2008 Draft Budget provides significant wage and pension raise. The Head of Government stated at the meeting with the leader of the Party of Regions faction Viktor Yanukovych, according to the government’s press-office.

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Published in Pravda.ru

Yulia Tymoshenko, the new Prime Minister of Ukraine, has launched her large-scale activities from the very first day of her stay in the office. It is obvious that everything that the lady is doing now is connected with the pre-election campaign, which is set to start in Ukraine in at the end of 2009.

Yulia Tymoshenko, the “iron lady of Ukraine” is determined to become Ukraine’s next president. The biography of the prime minister and the first steps that she takes of the position which she takes for the second time show that the president’s office is her primary goal.

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Published in Financial Times
By: Roman Olearchyk

Yulia Tymoshenko, the newly appointed prime ­minister of Ukraine, has pledged that her pro-western governing coalition will seek to "harmonise" relations with Moscow

Many observers expected the charismatic 47-year old, who was appointed last week, to shake up bilateral relations between Kiev and Moscow. Relations between the countries have been strained since the Orange Revolution of 2004. The trigger, many thought, would be her plans to cut intermediaries out of the multi-billion-dollar natural gas trade between Ukraine, Russia and central Asian suppliers.

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U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice is confident that Yulia Tymoshenko “will be a perfect Prime Minister”.

According to the government’s press-service, C.Rice said this during a telephone conversation with Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday.

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Published by BYuT

Dear fellow countrymen,

A new government for Ukraine was formed on Tuesday, December 18. You witnessed the way it happened. Passions probably had never run so high in the Ukrainian parliament.

They were reluctant to relinquish power, they sabotaged the Rada’s electronic voting system, they yanked MP voting cards and vandalized PCs and microphones.

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Published in The Wall Street Journal
By: Adrian Karatnycky and Jan Neutze

Travel south from Kiev along the arbored R-12 highway and you will see perhaps the most public symbols of Ukraine's rampant corruption: a wide array of luxurious estates that have sprung up in Koncha-Zaspa, a leafy suburb of the capital. Many of these multimillion-dollar homes belong to senior state officials with only modest salaries. Investigative journalists have compiled evidence suggesting quite a few of these mansions were bought with ill-gotten gains. This prompted President Viktor Yushchenko to demand in August that the public servants explain how they came to possess such lavish accommodations. But at the time his political opponents from the Party of Regions still ran the government, and they responded to his call for accountability with stony silence.

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Published in The New York Times / Washington Post / Reuters

Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who returned to her job this week, vowed on Thursday to cleanse Ukraine of corruption and fulfill campaign promises to improve the lives of the ex-Soviet state's 47 million people.

Tymoshenko, the fiery advocate of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" who was fired after seven months as premier, said her new administration would work tirelessly to ferret out what she described as the illegal dealings of its predecessors.

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Published in RFE/RL Newsline

Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko said on December 19 during the first meeting of the new Ukrainian cabinet that the government will prepare and submit within one week to the Verkhovna Rada a new draft of Ukraine's 2008 budget, RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reported. The government of former Premier Viktor Yanukovych adopted the budget draft in September, but the presidential staff announced later that it had not included all the social initiatives that were submitted by the president. Tymoshenko also said she wants all Ukrainian ministries to conduct "anticorruption audits or anticorruption examinations" in order to show "how [the previous government] spent each penny, issued each license, privatized and gave into private ownership each object -- whether it was done in a fair or unfair way." Read More...

Published in UNIAN

The government is studying the gas agreements with the Russian Federation, and only after that and after some consultations, they will “come to a new level of negotiations”.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, Top Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Oleksander Turchynov claimed this to journalists in Kyiv today, answering the question whether they expect any changes of the conditions of gas supplies from Russia to Ukraine in 2008.

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Published in Ukrayinska Pravda

France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy congratulated Yulia Tymoshenko on her appointment to the Prime Minister position.

Mr. Sarkozy’s letter addressed to Mrs. Tymoshenko is posted on the French President’s official web site.

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Published in ForUm

On Thursday at noon President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko will hold a meeting with chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko.

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Published in Interfax

The General Council of the WTO in Geneva on Wednesday won't consider the question of Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization, Vice Premier Hryhoriy Nemyria has said.

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Published in ForUm

Opening the first Cabinet session, Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko congratulated her subordinates and wished them luck, inspiration, patriotism and success.

“I feel that we did not leave. However, some people were here for several years who took something from Ukraine, but we will put everything in its places,” Tymoshenko said.

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Published in ForUm

“We greet the appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko to the position of the Prime Minister and we are ready to cooperate with her and new Ukrainian government,” stated Tom Keisy of The State Department.

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Published in EurActiv

Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the Orange revolution, was narrowly elected prime minister on 18 December, an outcome the EU hopes will accelerate Ukraine's drive to move closer to the West.

Tymoshenko won 226 votes - barely the majority needed in the 450-member Parliament - from deputies from her bloc and from President Viktor Yushchenko's party. The opposition, led by the pro-Russian Party of Regions led by former prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, boycotted the vote.

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Published in The New York Times
By: C. J. Chivers

Yulia Tymoshenko, the former opposition politician who helped lead the peaceful street protests that overturned a rigged presidential election three years ago, was approved by Parliament as Ukraine’s new prime minister.

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Published in UNIAN

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved of the staff of the new Cabinet of Ministers with 227 votes.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, particularly, parliament members from the factions of the BYUT and the Our Ukraine – People’s Self Defence took part in the voting by the way of raising hands.

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Published in ForUm

Speaker of the parliament Arseniy Yatsenyuk has put into consideration the draft resolution on new composition of the government. ForUm’s correspondent reports.

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Published in DPA

The election of Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister of Ukraine is "an important first step on the road to a stable government," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Tuesday. Welcoming the vote in the Ukraine parliament, Steinmeier said the coalition led by the reformist politician faced "numerous tasks and reforms that needed to be approached with courage."

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Published in Financial Times
By: Roman Olearchyk

Yulia Tymoshenko was on Tuesday endorsed as Ukraine’s prime minister after winning a wafer thin majority in a parliamentary vote. The charismatic Ms Tymoshenko will head a pro-western coalition of her political bloc and allies of Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko.

Ms Tymoshenko will replace Viktor Yanukovich, the Moscow-friendly premier whose year-long tussle over authority with Mr Yushchenko culminated in the president dissolving parliament last spring.

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Published in UNIAN

The appointment of Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister of Ukraine was officially announced in the Verkhovna Rada.

According to Council Commission chief Mykola Shershun, 227 lawmakers took part in the voting. Out of them 226 voted “for”, and 1 – abstained from voting.

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Published in ForUm

The counting commission of the VRU has signed official protocol on election of Yulia Tymoshenko to the position of Prime Minister. 226 People’s deputies voted for her.

Coalition met this announcement by heavy applauses. Colleagues congratulated Tymoshenko and presented her with a bunch of roses.
 
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Published in BBC Breaking News

Ukraine's parliament has narrowly voted in favour of making Yulia Tymoshenko, a leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution, prime minister for the second time.

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Published in International Herald Tribune / Reuters
By Yuri Kulikov

Ukraine's parliament on Tuesday restored Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister, sealing a political comeback for a leading figure from the former Soviet country's 2004 "Orange Revolution".

Tymoshenko, who confronted a powerful coalition led by outgoing prime minister Viktor Yanukovich, won 226 votes in the chamber, the exact number required to take office.

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Published in Forum

People’s deputies from BYuT and OU-PSD have voted to appoint Yulia Tymoshenko to the position of Prime Minister of Ukraine.

Tymoshenko got 226 votes of People’s deputies’ support.

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Published in UNIAN

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine began to consider the question of appointing BYuT front-runner Yulia Tymoshenko on the post of the Prime Minister of Ukraine.

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Published in ForUm

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko thinks that change of procedure of PM election corresponds with the democratic regulations. As the press service of the Head of the State informs, Yushchenko welcomes the decision, taken by the VRU, aimed at deblocking of the highest legislative organ of the country.

The President considers the changed procedure of the PM election to be reasonable, because the majority has stated about the failures in the electronic voting system.

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Published in ForUm

People’s deputies have approved parliament agenda of next Tuesday December 18. The ForUm’s correspondent informs.

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Published in ForUm

One of the BYuT leaders Olexander Turchynov told parliamentary journalists that tomorrow the coalition will insist on the consideration of Tymoshenko’s appointment to PM position and formation of new government.

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Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYuT) Deputies Viktor Pynzennyk, Yuriy Prodan, and Hryhoriy Nemyria met today in Kyiv with four of the largest foreign creditors of Naftohaz Ukraine, Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas company.  Investment bankers requested the meeting with BYuT to address Naftohaz Ukraine's precarious financial situation.

The Western investors' concerns are rooted in the failure of the outgoing Party of Regions government of Viktor Yanukovich to provide Naftohaz Ukraine with the proper policies and financial management. The outgoing government's failure to support its national oil and gas company has caused international creditors to question whether Naftohaz Ukraine will be able to meet its financial obligations.  According to the creditors, if action is not taken by 31 December 2007, Naftohaz Ukraine will violate its foreign loan agreements and be forced to immediately repay US$2.6 billion in loans.

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Published in ForUm

Today at 9 a.m. President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has submitted again candidacy of Yulia Tymoshenko for the position of PM to the VRU. The ForUm reports referring to the president’s press service.

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Published in ForUm

While voting for Yulia Tymoshenko to the position of Prime Minister, voting cards of People’s deputies from BYuT Ivan Denkovych and “Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense” faction Olexander Omelchenko did not work. BYuT member Andry Shevchenko said that in an interview, the ForUm’s correspondent informs.

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Published in ForUm

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has taken a decision to put the question on formation the government’s composition on the agenda. ForUm’s correspondent reports.
 
271 People’s deputies voted for such decision.
 
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Published in ForUm

The negotiations of representatives of the democratic coalition with President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko have completed positively. Deputy head of the BYuT faction Olexander Turchynov stated, ForUm’s correspondent reports.

“The negotiations have completed effectively, all quotas have been formed, including quotas of our allies. Everything is all right,” Turchynov said.

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Published in ForUm

At the moment in the parliament the negotiations among President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko, leaders of the factions, forming the coalition, and VRU speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk are being conducted. People’s deputy from the OU-PSD faction Yuriy Kostenko stated in an interview with parliamentary journalists. ForUm’s correspondent reports.

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Published in ForUm

President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko is holding a meeting with BYuT leader Yulia Tymoshenko for final clarification of Cabinet composition. One of the BYuT leaders Olexander Turchynov said that today in parliament, the ForUm’s correspondent informs. After that Viktor Yushchenko is going to come to the parliament.

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Published in Reuters
By: Ron Popeski

Ukraine's parliament was due to vote on Tuesday whether to restore Yulia Tymoshenko, an ardent advocate of Ukraine's "Orange Revolution", to the post of prime minister more than two years after she was sacked from the job.

Tymoshenko, 47, was formally put forward for the job by President Viktor Yushchenko after two "orange" parties won enough seats in a September election to form a wafer-thin coalition majority.

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Published in Reuters

Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko accepted on Thursday the leader of a pro-Western "orange" coalition, Yulia Tymoshenko, as prime minister.

"President Viktor Yushchenko has introduced to parliament ... the notion of designating Yulia Tymoshenko to the post of prime minister," a statement from the president's office said.

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Published in BBC

Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has nominated his Orange Revolution ally Yulia Tymoshenko for the post of prime minister.

Parliament now has to vote on her candidacy. Her bloc and the pro-Yushchenko Our Ukraine party have a majority of just two in the assembly.

Ukraine has been plagued by months of political deadlock.

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Published in International Herald Tribune/AP

President Viktor Yushchenko on Thursday nominated his Orange Revolution ally Yulia Tymoshenko to be Ukraine's prime minister, his office said.

Acting on a proposal from the newly formed government coalition, Yushchenko asked the parliament to approve Tymoshenko, the presidential office said in a statement. A vote was expected later Thursday.

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Published in Reuters / China Daily

A coalition of two parties linked to Ukraine's pro-Western "orange revolution" proposed Yulia Tymoshenko yesterday as their candidate to be restored in her old job as prime minister.

Members of parliament representing Our Ukraine, the party of President Viktor Yushchenko, and Tymoshenko's bloc unanimously approved the proposal in a room inside the parliament building.

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Published in Financial Times
By: Roman Olearchyk

Ukraine's pro-western governing coalition passed a major obstacle on Tuesday mustering just enough votes to elect a trusted ally of President Viktor Yushchenko as parliament speaker.

The candidacy of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a 33-year old former central bank chief who served most recently as Kiev's Foreign Minister, was supported by a razor-thin majority of 226 lawmakers in Ukraine's deeply-divided 450-seat legislature.

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Published by BYuT/UNIAN

Arseniy Yatseniuk has been elected as Verkhovna Rada Speaker of Ukraine of the sixth convocation.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, journalists were told about this by lawmaker Bohdan Hubskiy, who went out of the room, where a calculating commission was holding a session.

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Published in Reuters

The coalition is now to submit Tymoshenko´s nomination to the president, who then has 15 days to consider it.

A coalition of two parties linked to Ukraine's pro-Western "Orange Revolution" on Tuesday proposed Yulia Tymoshenko as their candidate to be restored in her old job as prime minister.

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Published in UNIAN

Ukraine`s majority pro-Western coalition voted Tuesday to put forward Yulia Tymoshenko as their candidate for prime minister, opening the way for the leader of the 2004 Orange Revolution to return to power, according to AFP.

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Four BYuT lawmakers deliberately took bribes from Party of Regions
Published in UNIAN

BYuT leader Yulia Tymoshenko claims that four BYuT lawmakers deliberately took bribes from the Party of Regions to confirm the fact of bribing parliamentarians for their refusal to create the coalition.

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Published in UNIAN

BYuT front-runner Yulia Tymoshenko is confident that soon a new Cabinet of Ministers will be formed, which will significantly differ from all the previous governments.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, she claimed this at a solemn convention of BYuT activists in Kyiv today.

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