Noch diesen Sommer wird es erneut grössere Aufstände geben in der Ukraine. Und zwar gegen die mehrheitlich rechten und rechtsradikalen Erfüllungsgehilfen des IWF, die sich jetzt dort die Macht teilen. Weil die Armen ihr letztes Geld für explodierende Energierechnungen ausgeben sollen.

Schon 2012 plädierte der Internationale Währungdsfonds in diesem Paper (backup: IMF - Ukraine Gas Pricing Policy (application/pdf, 711 KB) ) für eine Erhöhung der Gaspreise in der Ukraine um 20%. Jetzt sollen sie um bis 50% hochgehen. In den Worten der heutigen Morgennachrichten von SRF (ab 4:32):

In der Ukraine müssen sich die Menschen auf höhere Preise für Gas einstellen. Ein Vertreter des staatlichen Energiekkonzerns "Naftogaz", teilte mit, die Preise würden ab Mai um bis zu 50% angehoben. Höhere Gaspreise sind eine wesentliche Bedingung für weitere Kredite der EU und des Internatioanlen Währungsfonds, auf die die Ukraine dringend angewiesen ist.

An International Monetary Fund mission visiting Ukraine has urged the government to raise gas prices for domestic consumers and introduce a flexible exchange rate for the national currency, the hryvnia, a Fund official said on Thursday. Jerome Vacher, the IMF's resident representative in Kyiv, told a ratings conference that these were among recommendations made by a Fund team which has just ended a 10-day trip to the ex-Soviet republic. "Measures included a flexible exchange rate, strengthening of the banking system, fiscal adjustment, reform of the energy sector (and) substantial improvement of the business environment," Vacher told the annual Fitch ratings conference. He made clear that by energy reform the IMF meant raising the tariffs for domestic consumers of gas - both industry and households - something long opposed by the government. A previous $15 billion stand-by IMF programme was frozen in early 2011 after Kiev refused to end Soviet-era subsidies and raise prices in the household gas and heating sector.

To mitigate the effect of tariff adjustment on the less affluent, we recommend scaling up targeted social assistance programs that would cover up to 40 percent of the population.

Die Reichen werden's kaum spüren, die Armen aber schon, ist dort zu lesen, wobei es darin um eine 20%ige, nicht eine bis 50%ige Erhöhung, wie jetzt angekündigt, ging. Die Folgen der gestrichenen Energiepreissubventionen, die offenbar ähnlich funktionieren wie bei uns die Ergänzungsleistungen an die Krankenkassenprämien (abhängig vom Anteil der Kosten am Einkommen), sollen durch mehr Sozialhilfe für die Armen gemildert werden:

Wealthy households’ utilities’ expenditures relative to income are little impacted by tariff increases, unlike that of the poor. (…) Meanwhile, poorer households suffer the greatest loss of consumer surplus in proportion to income across all income groups. (…) Gas and heating tariff increases are necessary to address the current pricing policy’s economic inefficiencies and distributional distortions. As shown in this paper, the bulk of gas and heating subsidies to households are distributed through below cost pricing. Tariff increases will reduce these implicit subsidies which favor larger consumers, in this case wealthy households. At the same time, tariff increases will reduce massive overconsumption by lowering household gas and heating demand while incentivizing adoption of energy saving technologies. Over time, industrial energy efficiency would also increase with less illegal siphoning of gas from households to industries (reacting to the shrinking price differential between the two). (…) To enhance public support for phasing out utility subsidies, the income of social assistance beneficiaries can be boosted through cash compensation for consumer surplus losses stemming from the tariff increases.