You're reading: Barroso: Ukraine has to tackle corruption so that not to lose credit

DAVOS -- Tackling of corruption has to be the top priority task for the Ukrainian authorities, otherwise credit of international partners will be lost, said former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso during Davos Ukrainian Breakfast on Jan. 22.

Barroso, who was the EU Commission president in 2004-2014, told representatives of the Ukrainian authorities that if the problem of corruption is not resolved, then the international community, the EU, and the U.S. won’t accept Ukrainian success.

With this regard Barroso said he shares opinion of Ukrainian population that there were very few changes in combating corruption.

Barroso also said that global investors’ credibility was still to be earned, thus, the government’s work could overall be assessed not higher than ‘four with minus’, despite high marks of certain ministers, in particular, finance and economic development ministers.

Barroso has added that he believes the point of no return hasn’t yet been reached.

According to the ex-EU Commission’s president, Ukraine needed to fight in order to reserve attention to itself. Barroso said that these days Europe thought more of migrants and terrorists and Ukrainian issue would go down on the list of priorities of the international community.

Talking about the key tasks, Barroso pointed to the reform of the civil service in general and namely the State Fiscal Service; to the return of retired assets, transfer pricing, further reforms in the energy sector.

In his view, fully enforced Association Agreement and the free trade zone with the EU were among the additional instruments to fight against corruption.

At the same time, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson said during the breakfast that investors’ interest to Ukraine had increased. He said that he personally was much more optimistic than a year or two ago, adding that Virgin Group invested in Vodafone last year.

According to Branson, Ukraine had recently made a huge leap and it was difficult to expect that the country would move even faster than it was already moving; it was necessary to give it a bit more time.

Branson added that a further deterrent for the arrival of investors was the remaining war risk.

Davos Ukrainian Lunch is a traditional private event organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation on the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.