Politicians need to get out of the conditional vacuum – Nataliya Boyko

Nataliya Boyko believes that in order to improve external relations with foreign partners Ukraine should focus on the sequence of its actions at the internal level and create comfortable conditions for investors. Such an opinion was expressed by the Deputy Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine during the presentation of TRUMAN Index and TRUMAN Report of strategic communications consultancy TRUMAN Agency.

"All those steps that we do in Ukraine are not in a vacuum. All actions and reforms have a direct impact on our positioning, politics and Ukraine's external relations. Sometimes our politicians and parliamentarians lose this feeling. It seems to them that the things they do here are in a conditional vacuum and have no influence," Nataliya Boyko said. – We have a fantastic potential and very ambitious goals for gas production, generation of electricity, privatization, etc. Potential is just crazy. But everything will depend on how we shape the policy of the industry, and how comfortable we will be for investors."

At the same time, the Deputy Minister believes that today's relations with the European Union are fairly equal and have all the conditions for further development.

"We have a dialogue. It is productive. Indeed, there are moments where we assumed very ambitious commitments, for example, we were able to pass the law on the electricity market only this year. There are also directions for reform, which, in part, for objective or subjective reasons, have increased. There are also processes on our commitments and reforms that we normally work out and I do not see any problems with them at all," says Ms. Boyko. – Our problem is that we constantly measure the Association (with the EU, ed.) through what we have accomplished, according to the formal КРI. But most of them are actually prescribed quite formally. And the formal result does not always reflect reality. Neither does the level of relations nor the quality of the reforms. I can give a very painful example: the National Commission for State Regulation of Energy and Public Utilities controller. Under the KPI commitments, we had drafts of the law, the adoption of the law, secondary draft, secondary adoption. It seems that’s it: there's a green check mark – an independent regulator exists. Does this mean that an independent regulator has started functioining? Unfortunately no".

Nataliya Boyko sees a significant improvement in energy relations in cooperation with the United States of America.

"There is a certain warming, a signal. For energy, such was one of the sections of the sanction law, which clearly focused on the energy security of Ukraine. Still, things like Nord Stream 2 and common security issues were displayed there. Thus, the States have laid down in their law references for very important things. This is the beginning of a serious dialogue and the opportunity to move forward in a consistent way ", – assures the Deputy Minister of Energy of Ukraine.

More on the fate of the Ukrainian GTS, the investment attractiveness of the Ukrainian energy sector, a new way for electric energy. Nataliya Boyko commented on these and other issues in an interview for TRUMAN Report.