Parliament Votes to Roll Back Utility Increases.

The Regions, Socialist and Communist parties today voted together with the opposition Tymoshenko bloc to override the president’s veto and roll back residential tariffs for gas, electric power and other utilities to their levels as of January. The draft law, which was designed as a moratorium on increases when it was approved by the last parliament in February, forbids increases until the minimum wage is increased to the official subsistence level and all wage arrears are cleared. Also, parliament adopted a law requiring state and local budgets to compensate utilities to the extent their tariffs are fixed below their costs. Tom Warner: The former law looks at first glance like a potential disaster, but we are still hoping the roll-back can be avoided, either by quickly pushing through increases in the minimum wage and paying off wage arrears, or by having the law ruled unconstitutional. The latter law is good and we expect it to be signed and implemented.