Yatsenyuk Appointed Ukrainian PM, Warns Against Financial Turmoil

Arseniy Yatsenyuk will be Ukraine's new Prime Minister. Photo by EPA/BGNES

Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk was approved by lawmakers on Thursday as the new Prime Minister.

In favour of his appointment were 317 out of 417 MPs, the BBC reports, quoting interim president Oleksandr Turchynov.

Speaking at the Ukrainian Parliament, Yatsenyuk announced that the country is in a dire financial state and therefore he cannot promise the situation is going to get any better.

He claimed USD 37 B of credit received by ousted head of state Viktor Yanukovych has disappeared.

"Unpopular measures" about subsidies and social payments will be urgently needed, Yatsenyuk declared from the rostrum.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk is considered a close ally to Yulia Tymoshenko's Batkyvshchina ("Fatherland") party, which he led in Parliament and virtually represented while Tymoshenko was in prison. He was Economy Minister between 2005-2006 and Foreign Minister in 2007, during Tymoshenko's term. In 2010, he was a presidential candidate.

Ukrainian MPs also approved on Thursday the new national unity government which is due to rule the country until elections.

The coalition will comprise 250 MPs, most of them members of former PM Yuliya Tymoshenko's Batkyvshchina, former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko's UDAR ("Ukrainian Alliance for Democratic Reforms", an abbreviation meaning "punch" in Ukrainian), nationalist "Svoboda" and two other parliamentary groups, Russian agency ITAR-TASS has announced.

According to Der Spiegel magazine, Batkyvshchina is the most favoured party in the new parliamentary status quo, as it is expected to have the largest representation in the upcoming cabinet.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!