Home Page  >  Focus on Ukraine  >   

Focus on Ukraine March 1-7, 2010

March 8, 2010
Focus on Ukraine
Overview of political events of the week
 
March 1
 

President Viktor Yanukovych said at his meeting with EC President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels that European integration is a key priority for Ukraine.
Concerning the Ukraine-NATO cooperation program, Yanukovych said it will not be expanded, but will be implemented at its current level in line with partnership relations with the alliance.

Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Lytvyn informed that the Ukrainian parliament will review the resolution on non-confidence in the government on March 3.

 

Head of the BYuT faction Ivan Kyrylenko announced his faction will support a candidate from the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-defense (OU-PSD) faction for the post of Ukraine’s new premier provided it collects 60 signatures confirming its participation in the existing coalition.

 

Leader of the OU-PSD faction Mykola Martynenko stated his faction is willing to hold talks with the Party of Regions faction regarding the formation of a coalition.

He said the decision proposing the dismissal of Yulia Tymoshenko as premier and nominating a new candidate from the OU-PSD was approved at a meeting of the faction in which 37 members of parliament participated.

Martynenko assured that his faction will insist on support of its ideological underpinnings – namely, the language issue, the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the gas transport grid.

Presidential Chief-of-staff Serhiy Lyovochkin informed that the Presidential Administration of Ukraine and local administrations will be subject to a 20% downsizing. He said downsizing at all levels of state government is a requirement of the new president.

March 2
 

VR Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn announced the dissolution of the coalition between the BYuT, OU-PSD and Lytvyn Bloc.
He said these factions did not submit documents confirming the existence of this coalition to the parliament. BYuT considers this situation a breach of parliamentary procedures and described its as a dangerous precedent as not one of the factions announced their exit from the coalition.


YuliaTymoshenkodeemedthedissolutionofthecoalitionillegalandsaidtheLytvynBlocandpartoftheOU-PSDbear the responsibility.
The premier stated she plans to further muster up democratic forces under her leadership.

 

Ambassador of Russia to Ukraine Mikhail Zurabov presented his credentials to President Viktor Yanukovych.
The head of the Russian diplomatic mission addressed the President of Ukraine in the Ukrainian language as a show of respect and wished Ukraine’s head of state success.

Leader of the People’s Self-defense Yuriy Lutsenko announced that his political group has one to the opposition. He said this part of the OU-PSD, with the exception of three MPs, will not hold talks about a coalition with the Party of Regions.


March 3

InanaddresstotheUkrainianparliamentYuliaTymoshenkosaidthegovernmentpulled the countryout of the economic crisis. Tymoshenko is confident that she and the entire country were victims of the treason on the part of politicians and promised to conduct a housecleaning of government offices immediately after votes are cast.

The Verkhovna Rada sacked the government of Yulia Tymoshenko. A total of 243 members of parliament voted in favor of the resolution of no-confidence in the Cabinet of Ministers. Among them were 172 members of the Party of Regions, 27 – Communist Party of Ukraine, 19 – Lytvyn Bloc, 15 – OU-PSD (the United Center group of Viktor Baloha with 11 MPs and four MPs of the OU-PSD – Yuriy But, Serhiy Vasylenko, Stanislav Dovhiy and David Zhvaniya) and 7 MPs of the BYuT faction (Vitaliy Varvinenko, Hennadiy Zadyrko, Volodymr Kaplienko, Hryhoriy Omelchenko, Yuriy Poluneyev, Ihor Savchenko and Oleh Cheritskiy).
The draft resolution on the accountability of the government was read by Mykola Azarov, who is considered one of the top contenders for the post of premier. He pointed to the dismal state of the economy placing the personal responsibility on the shoulders of Yulia Tymoshenko

Yulia Tymoshenko announced her move to the opposition after a meeting of the BYuT faction. Tymoshenko informed she will not wait for the formation of a new coalition, will not serve as acting premier and in a matter of days will relinquish her powers as the head of the government. She also state that her political force must restructure its team, do a house-cleaning and prepare to assume power in the future on its own.

The Party of Regions wants to change the procedure of forming a coalition in the parliament. MPs of the Party of Regions registered the corresponding draft amendment to Article 61 on parliamentary procedures.
According to the changes, it is proposed to delete the norm dictating that a coalition must be formed by deputy factions and define a coalition as a union of deputy factions and MPs that are members of a majority of people’s deputies from the constitutional constituency of the Verkhovna Rada.In addition, the list of people’s deputies that formed a coalition must be appended to the coalition agreement.

Members of the Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil oblast councils appealed to the European Parliament with a request to rescind the resolution on Stepan Bandera.
They emphasize that the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) never collaborated with Nazi Germany.From 1941 to1944, Bandera was a prisoner at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany under the Hitler regime and two of his brothers were killed at Auschwitz.
As a reminder, the European Parliament condemned in its resolution the decree of President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko “On conferring the Hero of Ukraine Award to the leader of the OUN Stepan Bandera” and recommended the new Ukrainian leadership to review this decision.

March 4
 

The Verkhovna Rada approved in its first reading the bill allowing the formation of a majority in the parliament not only made up factions as required by the Constitution, but also of individual MPs.
229 MPs voted in favor of the corresponding amendments to Article 61. The law was sent for drafting for the second reading.

MP Volodymyr Filenko said from the parliamentary rostrum that the BYuT called attempts to form a coalition made up of individual deputies illegal.
He said it is concisely written in the Constitution that a coalition must be formed of factions, while “the Party of Regions is trying to push through individual MPs”.
After the adoption of the controversial bill, members of the BYuT tried accusing Volodymyr Lytvyn of treason. If the new law is adopted in full, the BYuT promised to challenge it in the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine.

IMF Resident Representative in Ukraine Max Alier said the International Monetary Fund is prepared to continue cooperation with Ukraine on condition that the national budget for 2010 is reduced.

Yulia Tymoshenko went on vacation for a month. Oleksandr Turchynov was appointed acting premier.  At the same time, by law government officials must fulfill their duties until a new coalition is formed in the parliament, which is the duty of the Cabinet of Ministers.
 
March 5
 

President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych made an official visit to Russia, where he had meetings with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and Russian Premier Vladimir Putin.
During the meeting Yanukovych promised that Russia this Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy will be fundamentally adjusted and there will be a drastic transformation in Ukrainian-Russian relations.
In his turn, Medvedev expressed his hope that the “black smear” in relations between Moscow and Kyiv will be eliminated with the election of the new Ukrainian president and that they will assume a qualitatively new form.

Medvedev and Yanukovych assigned the governments of their countries to discuss cooperation in the fuel and energy sector.

In addition to that, Yanukovych promised to not defer the adoption of laws on the protection of rights of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population. In reciprocation Medvedev proposed including one or two Ukrainian television channels in the digital TV package that does not yet exist, but will soon be introduced in Russia.


Yanukovych also assured that the Ukrainian government will approve the corresponding decision on decrees of former president Viktor Yushchenko regarding conferral of the Hero of Ukraine Award to Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych before the celebration of the 65th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War (WW II).

 

In summing up the meeting, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed that Ukraine join a Customs Union.

The press service of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko informed that it filed a claim with the Constitutional Court challenging the resolution of February 16, 2010 on cancelling elections to local councils and the elections of heads to village and local councils.
As noted in the notification, this resolution is being challenged in the courts for its violation of the Constitution of Ukraine.

 



Begin   Previous page   1   2   3   4   5   Next Page   End
^ Top