New Challenges, New Responses
On October 22 Verkhovna Rada debated amendments to the Concept (policy guidelines) of Ukraine’s National Security. The bill was introduced by President Kuchma represented by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Yevhen Marchuk. “The contemporary geopolitical situation and its dynamics create new priorities in the economic, political, social, military, and other spheres,” the NSDC secretary told Verkhovna Rada. “Ukraine’s stable development now depends not only on domestic processes but also on worldwide phenomena, such as the global financial crisis, international terrorism, and so on.” As Ukraine is drawn into such global processes and faces new types of foreign and domestic challenges, this should be reflected in the Concept of National Security, Mr. Marchuk believes. “Today we must reexamine our information policy and pay more attention to the fields of science and technology. The foreign political situation has radically changed in the past few years: international terrorism, illegal migration, and drug trafficking have become factors that strongly affect our state’s national security. At the same time, Ukraine has established significant partnership with NATO and officially proclaimed its European choice. All this demands that the Concept of Ukraine’s National Security be revised,” the NSDC secretary told the deputies.
The bill provides a list of priority national interests: first of all, protection of individuals constitutional rights and freedoms, including access to and dealing with information; the development of civil society and democratic institutions to secure human and civil rights and freedoms; protection of the individual, society, and state from terrorism, including that from abroad, and from political, economic, and religious extremism; ensuring state sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of state borders; and the noninterference of foreign states in Ukraine’s internal affairs. The suggested version of the concept also lists dangers to our national security, categorized in political, economic, social, humanitarian, military, environmental, scientific, technological, informational, and border-security spheres. There is a total of almost 70 dangers to national security, among them separatist tendencies in some regions and in the activity of certain political forces of Ukraine, attempts to violate the principle of the separation of powers as well as the system of governmental responsibility and discipline, low level of the investment and innovation activities in economic entities; insufficient level of individual investment in the economy; insufficient conditions for the formation of the middle class; the growing economic stratification of the population accompanied by the poverty of a considerable part of it; and the establishment and activities of terrorist formations aimed at both Ukraine and foreign states. Also listed as threats to national security are the amassing of troops and equipment by foreign states close to the borders of Ukraine, which upsets the current balance of forces; the growing adverse effect of Chornobyl consequences on human health; the accumulation of toxic wastes and the growing impact of them on the environment; deterioration of the environment; the cult of violence, cruelty, and pornography cultivated by the mass media; computer terrorism; and large-scale manipulation of public consciousness by spreading false information.
Taking into account of the list of dangers, the draft sets out the main guidelines of government policies concerning national security. It envisions in particular this country’s membership in existing and prospective systems of universal and regional security, participation in the settlement of conflicts, including peacekeeping under UN, OSCE, and NATO auspices, fighting international terrorism, introducing the system of civilian control over the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations, guaranteeing the ecological safety of nuclear facilities along with protecting the population and the environment from radiation, minimizing Chornobyl disaster effects, and the final delimitation and demarcation of borders. Those who drew up the document believe that the main function of the national security system in all fields is to establish and keep in readiness a system of means and forces to ensure national security, government monitoring of Ukraine’s national security, on which Secretary Marchuk put special emphasis, management of the national security system, and utilization of international cooperation mechanisms to reinforce national security.
After NSDC Secretary Yevhen Marchuk presented the bill, the latter was supported on behalf of the Verkhovna Rada committee for national security and defense by People’s Deputy Oleksandr Kuzmuk, former minister of defense. To quote Gen. Kuzmuk, “The new bill is more perfect than the existing law, for it clearly defines the threats to and the objects and subjects of national security and expounds the responsibility of all sides in charge of national security.” Mr. Kuzmuk said the committee he represented had thoroughly considered the proposed bill and, in spite of some drawbacks (one of them was that some provisions were borrowed from the old and no longer relevant concept), recommended by an absolute majority vote (9:1) that the parliament approve the bill in the first reading. Judging by the audience’s reaction to the proposed bill, the document evinced the interest of various factions and political forces. One of the most interesting questions the deputies put to NSDC Secretary Marchuk was about the ways of solving the problem of Ukrainian mass media funding by foreign states. Deputy Oleh Zarubynsky, who asked the question, is convinced that the media subsidized from abroad and. particularly, by the government bodies of other countries usually support specific representatives of the Ukrainian political spectrum. Secretary Marchuk replied that this is a truly pressing problem. Yet, in his opinion, “isolation is not the best way to uphold our national security.” He believes that foreign influence should be countered with a more effective national information policy. According to the deputies The Day’s correspondent spoke to, the bill proposed by the head of state stands a good chance of approval if not derailed by purely political factors such as a boycott by some factions.
Out of the other bills discussed last Tuesday, the one on the foundations of Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policies was by far the most important: also presented were several alternative versions drafted by Deputies Petro Symonenko (KPU), Oleh Belorus, and Mykhailo Pavlovsky (BYuT faction). Among other important bills discussed by the deputies are legislative projects on Ukraine’s basic national interests, basic foreign policy and foreign relations.
