Ukraine adopts 'draconian' budget backed by IMF

Ukraine's parliament today adopted an austerity budget that hikes import prices and shrinks social spending in order to balance the books under a plan backed by the International Monetary Fund.
The highly-disputed 2015 plan was pushed through by the government-led coalition after a marathon debate that ended after 4:00 am.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko paid an unannounced visit to parliament yesterday in order to convince his own disgruntled faction members to support the bill in the face of public discontent.
About 1,000 people lit flairs and held up angry signs outside the parliament building in protest at the additional pain the measures will mete out on the war-scarred nation in the year ahead.

"This is going to be a draconian year," Samopomich (Self-Reliance) centrist party member Oleg Berezyuk warned before the 233-27 vote.
The financial blueprint was passed only after Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk promised deputies a chance on February 15 to soften some of its more unpopular points should these revisions be backed by a visiting IMF team.

But many lawmakers harshly criticised the government for failing to provide them with all the details of the budget before the vote.
"After voting for laws that radically changed the revenues and expenditures parts, we do not have the draft budget in our hands," said former prime minister and current ruling coalition member Yulia Tymoshenko.

Poroshenko's advisers hailed the plan as a long-overdue measure that will cause short-term pain in order to help Ukraine funnel resources better into lagging economic sectors and the army.
"Two pieces of news. One good and one bad," presidential administration member Valeriy Chaly wrote in a Facebook post.
"The first is that my salary -- along with that of all the other leaders -- has been rather seriously cut," Chaly wrote.