Media: Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk agreed on Groisman as Prime Minister
The so-called Strategic Seven agreed that speaker, Volodymyr Groisman, will take the post of the current Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as reported by the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper, which received this information from sources familiar with the progress of the negotiations.
The negotiations on Groisman’s candidacy finally made progress only on Monday, March 21.
The negotiations of the Strategic Seven were conducted in an intense atmosphere starting Friday, March 18.
One of the participants of the Seven, Yuriy Lutsenko, admitted that the meetings continued late into night.
The candidacy of the head of the Ministry of Finance, Natalia Jaresko, was rejected after she submitted the list of people with whom she refuses to work, which included Vladimir Demchyshyn, who heads the Ministry of Energy.
The new Cabinet is not fully formed yet but Groisman has already proposed several candidates.
"He even tried to offer his own government. He wants to include his colleagues from Vinnytsia and opposes Kovalchuk's candidacy as a Vice Prime Minister. But the future composition of the government is being chosen for him already," a source close to Poroshenko told Ukrainkskaya Pravda.
However, sources of the newspaper noted that Yatsenyuk could 'change his mind' again before Wednesday, when the leader of the Poroshenko Block, Yuriy Lutsenko, will have to present leaders of factions with Groisman's candidacy.
The Strategic Seven is a group of people from the entourage of the President and Prime Minister who have recently been making major decisions for the country.
This group includes the President and Prime Minister themselves, the head of the Presidential Administration, Boris Lozhkin, Parliamentary Ppeaker, Vladimir Groisman, head of the National Security Council, Alexander Turchynov, head of the Block of Petro Poroshenko faction, Yuriy Lutsenko, and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Arsen Avakov.