Yulia Tymoshenko: Old parliamentary coalition is ruined and a new one is formed 

A new coalition was formed by the parliamentary groups of the People’s Front, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc and a few MPs from the former Party of Regions during the hearings of Ukraine’s draft national budget 2016, the leader of the parliamentary group of Batkivshchyna Yulia Tymoshenko has said on air of a Ukrainian TV channel.

“De facto, the coalition formed for ensuring democracy and fair procedures has been ruined by the Government and the pro-governmental factions. It has split up into those who want changes for Ukraine and those who want to live as they have lived so far,” Tymoshenko said.

She said that her party had voted against the next year’s corrupt budget. “It will foster economic decline in the country. SMEs and farmers will suffer from even heavier tax burdens and will see no more tax preferences. That is, the authorities continue killing the economy,” Tymoshenko said.

AsEADaily reported earlier, on Dec 25б Ukraine’s Supreme Rada approved the country’s national budget 2016. Based on the IMF’s recommendations, the budget envisages revenues of 595bn UAH or $25.9bn, expenses of 667.7bn UAH or $29.1bn, a deficit of 3.7% of GDP, 12% inflation and 2% GDP growth.

According to Ukrainian experts, the budget will make the Ukrainians even poorer. The leader of the Ukrainian Choice movement Viktor Medvedchuk warns that inflation will jump to 20-30%. “This means extreme poverty for most of people in Ukraine,” he said.

Even though the Batkivshchyna and Self-Reliance parties refused to vote, the budget was approved by 263 votes due, particularly, to deputies from the opposition Radical Party – even though the leader of that force Oleh Lyashko had slated the budget before the voting.