Fixed Income
Ukraine’s sovereign Eurobonds gained back some of their recent losses last week thanks to encouraging news that the European Union has unblocked visa-free travel for the country, with the doors possibly opening as soon as next month. The prospect of easy travel to Europe has been used by the Poroshenko government to win popular backing for painful EU-sponsored reforms. Meanwhile, EU assistance to Ukraine intended to support the country’s reform efforts has had only a limited impact on corruption, according to a European Court of Auditors report published on Dec 7. Oligarchic clans continue to exert a dominant influence on Ukraine’s economy, politics and media, the auditors concluded. From 2007 to 2015, total EU financial assistance to Ukraine was EUR 1.6bn in grants and EUR 3.4bn in macro-financial loans.
