|
PLENARY WEEK
The following Laws of Ukraine were adopted with the proposals of the President of Ukraine:
1. on Introduction of Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Joint-Stock Companies (on improving the mechanism of activities of joint-stock companies).
2. on Introduction of Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on State Procurement.
3. on Organizing and Hosting the Final Part of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship in Ukraine.
The following Laws of Ukraine were adopted as a whole:
1. on Introduction of Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine concerning Elections of Members of Parliament of Ukraine, the President of Ukraine, Members of Parliament of the Autonomous Republic Crimea, Local Councils and Village, Settlement and City Governors.
2. on Introduction of Amendments to the Law on Grapes and Grape Wine. The Law was adopted to bring Ukrainian legislation in compliance with the standards of the European Union in the field of wine-growing and wine production.
3. on Introduction of Amendments to Article 3 of the Law on Public Regulation of Sugar Production and Trade (concerning licensing of sugar wholesale trade).
4. on Introduction of Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine (concerning regulation of labour and official relations and elimination of legal gaps in state secret legislation).
5. on Introduction of Amendments to Article 155 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine (concerning justification of taking into custody).
6. on Introduction of Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning appealing a judgment of a court of arbitration and issuance of writs by decision of courts of arbitration.
7. on Introduction of Amendments to the Economic Procedural Code of Ukraine (concerning appealing a judgment of a court of arbitration and receipt of a writ).
8. on Introduction of Amendments to Article 81 of the Civil Procedural Code of Ukraine (concerning the determination of the procedure of paying costs of the information and technical support of hearing cases on recognition and execution of judgments of foreign courts in Ukraine).
9. on Introduction of Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on the Judicial System and the Status of Judges (concerning special training of candidates for judges).
10. on Introduction of Amendments to Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine on Courts of Arbitration (concerning jurisdiction of cases in the sphere of consumer rights protection).
11. on Introduction of Amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Postal Service (concerning enclosures banned for mailing).
12. on Introduction of Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine concerning preliminary documentary control at the customs border checkpoints.
13. on Approval of the Decision of the President of Ukraine on sending peacekeeping force for participation of Ukraine in the UN operation in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire.
14. on Introduction of Amendments to Article 75 of the Law of Ukraine on Banks and Bank Operations (concerning the term of office of provisional administrations).
Adopted Resolutions:
1. on the Agenda of the Eighth Session of the Sixth Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, including 863 Bills.
2. on Celebration of the 170th Anniversary of Famous Ukrainian Author, Publicist, Historian, Public Figure Mykhailo Drahomanov.
3. on Organizing Parliamentary Hearings ‘On the State and Prospects of the Development of Economic Relations with the EU (Free Trade Area) and the Customs Union’ (May 11, 2011).
4. on the Recommendations of the Parliamentary Hearings on the State of the Youth in Ukraine ‘Youth Supports the Healthy Lifestyle’.
5. on the Celebration of the 65th anniversary of the annexation of Zakarpatska oblast to Ukraine.
6. on the State Celebration of the 1800th anniversary of the founding of the city of Sudak.
Adopted Resolutions:
1. On pre-term dismissal of Members of Ukrainian Parliament following personal resignation, specifically V.F. Demishkan, M.V. Dzhyga, G.O. Illiashov, M.V. Zlochevsky, L.I. Fesenko, O.V. Boyarchuk, I.G, Kaletnik, O.M. Babayev.
2. On election and dismissal of judges.
93 deputy inquiries were announced.
PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS TO TAKE PLACE IN 2012
No high-profile decision can pass the Verkhovna Rada without a scandal. This time, everybody’s attention was on the voting for the Constitutional Amendments using duplicate cards. MP Volodymyr Aryev, who was on a business trip to the USA at that moment, showed his own voting card that he had with him and denied he had asked somebody else to vote on his behalf. However, this fact didn’t seem so shocking either for Ukrainian politicians, or society. Moreover, it has been said that the Party of the Regions is currently working on amendments to the Verkhovna Rada Rules of Procedure which would legalize the procedure of voting on behalf of the MPs absent from the session hall.
Note: The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine has introduced amendments to the Constitution to schedule the next presidential and parliamentary elections. This decision was backed by 310 MPs, including 180 members of the Party of the Regions, 7 members of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc, 41 members of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense bloc, 25 members of the Communist party of Ukraine, 20 members of the People’s party, and 37 MPs who are not members of any parliamentary faction. The next parliamentary elections are to take place in the last week of October, 2012.
The opposition tried to refer to the fact of violations and without taking people to streets (which it was unable to do anyway) criticized the present authorities for refusing to appoint the parliamentary elections for spring 2011. The reason behind it is the fact that the lack constructivism and limited nature of national political technologies have been a part of our reality for quite a long time. The principle of criticizing the authorities no matter what is used all the time and is not likely to be replaced by any other approaches any time soon.
Ratings of oppositional forces, the results of the local elections and the lack of an alternative way of the country’s development demonstrate the opposition’s inability to change the political agenda. Moreover, there was no constitutional period left before the proposed election date in spring 2011 for an election campaign. So the opposition backed this delay in fact, even though it had a possibility to public criticize the authorities for voting with the cards of MPs who were not present at the session hall at that moment.
Quite demonstrative is the support of the decision to postpone the elections by the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense (NU-NS) faction. Being perfectly aware of their less than perfect prospects, MPs took a ‘pragmatic’ decision to support the parliamentary majority in this voting. Now they have time for repositioning, for searching for new forms of election campaigns.
The Party of the Regions faction decided not to follow the advice of political technologies who urged it to run in the elections in spring, promising the party a highly probable victory. It was hampered by the reluctance of the party to provide additional investments and a threat of losing time due to the process of reformation which has been going on too slowly. Finally, the party still believes that the first signs of successful modernization of the country will make their appearance in a year and together with the positive impact of Euro 2012, it will ensure the victory of the present authorities in the 2012 elections and governing majority in the parliament before the presidential elections.
A more intriguing issue is new electoral legislation, the rules regulating the election of Members of Parliament. Thorough preparation of this Bill is a factor on which too much depends, in particular the transparency of the electoral process, prospects of the development of the party system. At the moment, three working groups formed by the President of Ukraine are reported to be ready to present the final Draft Electoral Code by the end of the current session, which will probably be based on the experience of the local elections and the mixed electoral system.
Conclusions: the Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine concerning the appointment of the election day were introduced with violation of the Rules of Procedure of the Verkhovna Rada through, already normal, process of indirect voting. As a result, political forces will have time to prepare for the election campaign. Today, the ratings of pro-authorities parties (the Party of the Regions, the Communist party of Ukraine, People’s Party, Strong Ukraine party) are going down. Ratings of the major oppositional forces (Batkivshchyna, Front Zmin and Svoboda) remain on the same level with the possibility of gradual rise, taking into account the failure of the authorities’ reforms.
PENSION REFORM UP IN THE AIR
According to the announced governmental initiatives, the reform of 2011 is going to be the raise of the retirement age. Public discussion on the retirement age is to come to an end in February, but even today there are views about changing the Bill planned for consideration in the Verkhovna Rada. With this in mind, it seems rather odd that Sergiy Tigipko urges to withdraw the Bill. At the end of 2010, the Vice PM and Minister for Social Policies presented the pension reform as a complete system of actions aimed at raising pensions and gradual liquidation of the debt of the Pension Fund and denied any possible negative consequences of the reform.
The participation of Slovak experts in the preparation of the reform was greatly publicized as they were supposed to take into account the experience of their country and ensure optimization of the national concept. But there are no results so far. It looks like the consideration of the reform will be delayed till March, especially taking into account that Communists (members of the parliamentary coalition), who have made it clear that they do not support the pension reform, are currently trying to organize protests. So the authorities have decided to improve the Bill before the parliament’s consideration. One of the highly important problems of the pension reform is ensuring fair pension expenses as well as the economy of saving adopted by the Pension Fund with its deficit of over 26bln hryvnias.
Note: 3% of retired population receives pensions of 4.000-50.000 hryvnias. About 10% receives from 2.000 to 4.000 hryvnias. About 7% of the population receives pensions below 2.000 hryvnias. Below 1.000 hryvnias is paid to 80% of the population, with 4.100.000 citizens have pensions of less than 900 hryvnias, while 2.800.000 citizens below 800 hryvnias.
According to Sergiy Tigipko, it seems, despite the shamefully low level of pensions, the state has to decide whether to raise the retirement age or to reduce pensions, otherwise the deficit of the Pension Fund will result in late payments and delays. In this, rather awkward, way, the Cabinet tries to explain why the lesser of the two evils should be chosen – the retirement age rise over 10 years which is supposed to ensure in some unfathomable way the coverage of the deficit of the Pension Fund in the nearest future.
Conclusions: the authorities are not likely to abandon the plans of raising the retirement age. It will be done with delays, amendments and addendums to the existing Bill. They will try to create a positive image of a new Bill and meet the requirements of the International Monetary Fund to receive another tranche. The deficit of the Pension Fund will be not less than 20bln hryvnias by the end of the year, so we should not expect a pension raise or any additional payments to pensioners despite the growing prices and inflation. The consistency of the pension reform is a big question, as is the possibility of limiting pensions of retired public officials. The latter will probably be applied to newly retired officials, which will hardly stimulate the public to support the present authorities’ actions. The opposition will use the pension reform as another reason for harsh criticism of the Cabinet and the President of Ukraine, doubling their efforts to organize mass protests in the country.
INTERFACTIONAL UNION OF OPPOSITIONAL DEPUTIES: reloaded
The idea to unite parliamentary factions that represent opposition seems to tend to repeating itself – even though it has never been fully implemented. MP Taras Stetskiv, deputy head of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction, has declared another plan to form a interfactional union of members of the Yulia Tymoshenko bloc – Batkivshchyna and some members of NU-NS.
What was obvious – to offer a strong constructive alternative to every ‘reformist’ initiative of the authorities – has to become a factor of winning back confidence of the public in post-‘orange’ political forces which had a chance to prove their worth before. This union will be mostly formal as part of the deputies will follow Arseniy Yatseniuk as their leader, the other, which is quite natural, Yulia Tymoshenko.
Another question is whether the union will manage to produce effective legislative base which was not created during the ‘orange’ years and is not being drafted now either. The fact that they recognized blockade of the parliamentary tribune as an ineffective method does not exonerate oppositional forces from responsibility as they used this method trying to destabilize the political situation in the country. Now, seeing how helpless such actions are, the opposition will try to find a new format of its activities, trying to win over the voters.
Conclusions: this time, the remains of the factions of Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense and Batkivshchyna might actually join their forces, but the efficiency of this union is rather doubtful. Moreover, with the parliamentary elections coming closer, this group might collapse or at least suffer from inner clashes and conflicts. For now, despite ‘hard efforts’ of the present authorities to come up with at least one integral reform, the opposition has not used its chance to develop an alternative and to prove their intellectual worth to voters, which is what is actually expected of Members of Ukrainian Parliament.
|
