Zelensky and Kolomoyskyi discussed energy monopolies and tariff cuts “for ordinary citizens”

Kolomoyskyi should “help to ensure utilities-related prices reduction... President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that during a meeting with businessman Ihor Kolomoyskyi and discussion of energy issues, they talked about how to make life of Ukrainians easier in the matter of utility tariffs, reports BusinessCensor with reference to Interfax-Ukraine.

“Everyone must live by the rules. There will be no monopoly”, Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on Friday after his speech at YES Forum, commenting on the entire meeting with Kolomoyskyi.

Answering the question whether this also applies to Kolomoyskyi, Zelensky said: “For everyone. Including Mr. Kolomoyskyi. And he should help to ensure utilities-related prices reduction”.

The President emphasized the paradoxical need for market conditions, but also the importance of making every effort to make utilities cheaper for people:

“First of all, everyone understands that there should be a market. And our European partners really want market prices. But we must do everything to make it cheaper for our people”, he added.

Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection Oleksiy Orzhel, who also participated in the meeting with Kolomoyskyi, said that the issue of “demonopolization of the electricity market, increasing competition, coal prices, including the fact that the Ukrainian consumer should receive the benefit from a fall in the price of coal” was discussed:

“But it is necessary, firstly, to stabilize the market, and secondly, to agree on the right competitive tools. And if suddenly one of the market entities does not behave in accordance with antimonopoly legislation, then we have AMCU that must work with these issues. We have updated it now, it is effective. We have already seen the first precedent (the forced disaggregation of Dmitry Firtash’s Ostchem – ed.), so I hope that we can continue to work using this logic”, the minister added.

Also during the meeting with Kolomoyskyi, Centrenergo issue was discussed, the bankruptcy of which was recently resumed.

 

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