Path to Sustainability. Troubled Gradualism of the Unfinished Coal Mining Reform in Ukraine

Abstract

This paper examines the reforming process in the coal mining industry in Ukraine and analyses reform outcomes which a gradualist approach adopted to recover the industry has delivered. Ukraine's gradualist approach is addressed in the paper narrowly through the lens of rent seeking, established in the coal industry in Ukraine in the 1980s, which persisted and stretched across the highest tiers of the government after the country gained independence. By now, reform achievements turned to be much less fruitful than in other countries-proponents of gradualism, first of all CEE and FSU countries. Detailed analysis of strategic documents which define development of the coal mining sector, reveal inconsistencies all of which lead us to the conclusion that the recent reform attempts are not purposed, in fact, towards implementation unlike declared. Strategic documents are not timely consistent when it comes to defining stages of the coal mining reform and a clear implementation timeline, not speaking about agreement on all major reforming steps to be undertaken.

Energy Security and Energy Efficiency Issues: Household Perspective in European Countries

“…Increasing demand of oil in Asia, Europe's dependency on gas and environmental degradation due to increase in energy use become problems under consideration. Hence energy availability represents the classical, or early characteristics of energy security, while affordability and acceptability may be conditionally called "new" characteristics, which are introduced in attempt to address contemporary issues of global development, such as increasing demand of energy, triggered by increasing population and respective increase of economic activities, and consequent environmental degradation (Dudzevičiūtė 2012;Tvaronavičienė 2012Tvaronavičienė , 2014Antanavičienė 2014;Balitskiy et al 2014;Balkytė, Tvaronavičienė 2010;Bilevičienė, Bilevičiūtė 2015;Caurkubule, Rubanovskis 2014;Corneliu, Tamošiūnienė 2015;Dezellus et al 2015;Lapinskienė et al 2014Lapinskienė et al , 2013Peker et al 2014;Rakauskienė 2014;Vosylius et al 2013;Tvaronavičienė et al 2014;Raudeliūnienė et al 2014;Jefremov, Rubanovskis 2015;Vasiliūnaitė 2014;Bistrova et al 2014;Borshchevska 2015).…”