Although after the first attempt to deliberate the budget resolution, the Parliament decided it would this week continue the “titanic budget committee work with factions and other committees” actually got back to it last Friday morning.
Supposedly, Yuliya Tymoshenko managed to persuade the deputies that the budget deficit figure is conditional and talked them into adopting the resolution with no specific indicator. However, after repeated votes Oleksandr Tkachenko decided to table it. Rukh and the Communists initiated a boycott. This gave Oleksandr Yemets reason to state that there was a plot between the CPU and the President. According to him, “those in power are interested that the budget deficit be big in order to repay social arrears on the eve of the presidential election.”
Rukh, for its part, took offense and announced its fraction would abstain until a bill on legal violations in establishing the Naftohaz Ukrainy National Joint Stock Company is not put on the agenda. Roman Zvarych told The Day that the current situation would allow the privatization of the most profitable branch of the economy which is filling budget coffers.
Characteristically, Rukh tried to do its best to get the most out of the situation of having defended someone's corporate interests (the Speaker said, “Obviously one of you probably have an oil well, and that's why you worry”). Moreover, with this move it demonstrated once more its firm opposition to the Verkhovna Rada leadership as it had earlier declared.
However, this intrigue went no farther for, as Yeliashkevych put it, if we do not adopt the resolution it will enable the President to use the transitional provisions, adopt the 1999 budget by decree, and to make it a “pocket” one. Yeliashkevych thinks the government is interested that the resolution not be adopted, which would enable it to act on the basis of presidential edicts because the President is easier to deal with than Parliament. But even its own government has to be kept under control; as we know, power corrupts. This stance seems to confirm that the gap between the President and the pro-presidential PDP is constantly growing.
An extraordinary one hour long faction leaders' consultation resulted in getting back to the resolution which was adopted by 286 votes. The Verkhovna Rada leadership had to concede to Rukh and put the bill it wants on the agenda. And answering the question of what made it possible to overcome the Communists' obstinacy, the budget committee chair said, “There are arguments which are clear even to Communists, because if we adopt a 6% deficit, this will de facto give the government the right to cut social expenditures on its own.”






