On April 25, 2017 with the support of the Ukrainian-Austrian Bureau of cooperation in education, science and culture the public lecture on the theme “Comparison of the crises in the post-Soviet countries and the issue of good governance” was held by the representative of the Institute for international economics and development of the Vienna Economic University, Professor Joachim Becker at the faculty of economics of Lviv university.
“We are pleased that today the close contacts in the sphere of economics, science and culture between Ukraine and Austria are being renewed. I urge everybody to promote the deepening of good relationships between the countries as it will benefit our entire society”, – the Chairperson of the department of management, Professor Volodymyr Yatsura noted before the start of the lecture.
Presenting the guest the organizer of the event, the Docent of the department of management Marianna Kokhan emphasized on the extraordinary nature of his personality. According to her, Professor Becker knows five languages (German, English, Spanish, Portugal, Slovakian), reads in Ukrainian, travels a lot with guest lectures on the problems of developing transition economies and actively participates in thematic scientific and practical events.
Joachim Becker addressed the audience with the welcoming speech in Ukrainian and then he continued to lecture in German. The logics of the lecture provided for the comparative and retrospective analysis of developing Ukraine, Russia, Belarus from the time of collapsing the Soviet Union till today. In particular, he put economic stresses and singled out the key events of the social and political life in the period of 1989-2017.
“If we compare the current rates of the real GDP with the indexes of 1989, it is lower in Ukraine and Moldova and it is higher in Russia and Belarus”, – the lecturer noted. Trying to explain this situation Joachim Becker singled out common and different features of the countries, substantiated the causal relationships and logics of the economic dynamics of post-Soviet countries. Hence, the scientist noted that the current problems of Ukraine had structural character and some time was needed to solve them.
In addition, the professor emphasized on the special role of the state which was the principal “agent of changes” when reforming the economics. “The issue of absolute autonomy of the state structure from different business interests is of great importance. There is a pluralistic oligarchy in Ukraine where oligarchic groups compete with each other and struggle for certain advantages. In accordance, the political parties which are attached to the oligarchic groups, also compete. The different foreign political orientation of the oligarchy also has a negative impact on the economic development as a whole”, – the professor noted.
The principal issues of the discussion that was developed at the end of the lecture became the prognosis and recommendations for Ukraine how to overcome the crisis, perspectives of the cooperation with the European Union and migration of the intellectual capital abroad. Answering the question what the students could do to improve the economics of Ukraine, Joachim Becker said that it was necessary to study thoroughly the problems the country faced and compare them with other states.
“If you are engaged in science in the future, you should draw on as many scientists as possible to consult the people who make decisions on the development of the country”, – professor Joachim Becker addressed to the students.