President’s address without the president

The MPs have finally received the president’s annual address to the parliament. The statement about Ukraine’s domestic and international situation was available to the parliamentarians, but only on paper, since Viktor Yanukovych would not honor them with his presence. The Day has recently written about this (see issue No. 36 of June 6, 2013): the president’s responsibility is to show up at the parliament; the opposition’s responsibility is to keep order. But it never happened. The Party of Regions’ main argument is, that since the opposition is disinclined to listen, why should the head of state come and speak from the rostrum? Our readers will probably know that Yanukovych’s recent appearances at the Verkhovna Rada were accompanied with the opposition’s boos and catcalls.

So what happened? The opposition resorted to its old method, blocking the rostrum, to emphasize its demand that the president appear at the Verkhovna Rada in person. “That no one is going to listen is Viktor Yanukovych’s personal opinion,” told The Day Volodymyr Bondarenko, MP for Batkivshchyna (Fatherland). “He never tried to convey anything to us, actually. According to current Ukrainian legislation and the parliamentary agenda, the president reads his address at the parliament. He cannot just send the text on paper. He must be personally present at the Verkhovna Rada during the debates of political factions on his address. Meanwhile, we were offered another option: ok boys, read these papers here and think over them. This is absolutely wrong. The president must deliver the speech.”

“We guaranteed, in a dialog with our colleagues, that we would listen to this address. But we also want the president to hear the representatives of the political factions. He can do it at the parliament assembly room, or he can invite them to his office, that is, start a dialog,” says Bondarenko.

“Although the oppositionists say that they are ready to listen, we all know perfectly well: today they say one thing, tomorrow another,” counters MP Oleh Zarubinsky (Party of Regions). “In my eyes all these declarations are virtually worthless: we have so often heard empty words that the opposition’s statements mean nothing to me.”

Another oppositionist, MP Pavlo Rozenko (UDAR) admits that the absence of dialog undermines the state: “It pulls Ukraine backwards and of course is a huge drawback for the current political situation in the country. But we must clearly realize that under the present conditions there are no prerequisites for such a dialog to begin. It is impossible to speak of any dialog in a country, where the opposition is persecuted and one of its leaders is behind bars. Thus the key to negotiations is on Bankova Street. It is hard to speak of starting a dialog unless the fundamental question of Ukraine’s progress towards European standards is solved and political repressions in Ukraine are stopped.”

So is the president coming to the Verkhovna Rada or not? “I support the idea of the president speaking to the parliament,” replies Zarubinsky. “Moreover, when Yushchenko spoke, I always followed carefully because he was the incumbent. I agreed with some points and disagreed with others, made notes, offered remarks, thought it over. But the opposition only wants to turn the president’s speech into another show, bringing a hundred cameras along, and so on. This is just a matter of morals and psychology: if you want someone to come and speak before you, be kind to at least behave as members of the nation’s parliament, and not as thugs. So I think that the president will only come to the Verkhovna Rada when there is some kind of basic workplace atmosphere.”

As we can see, a reluctance to meet each other halfway leaves the government and the opposition where they were. It is clear that in such a situation it is the voter and the nation in general that loses. However, the antagonism and mutual accusations left the very document in the shade.

Of course it is no easy thing to read more than 500 pages in one day, but dotting it down is quite doable.

“So far I have read the chapter which has to do with my activities in the parliamentary committee. These are the issues of alternative energy and energy efficiency,” says Zarubinsky. “In my opinion, the text is quite informative: there are a lot of both theoretical and practical issues there.”

“I would not call this a classical address. This document could be best described as a manual developed by the Institute for Strategic Studies under the President of Ukraine, a sort of illustration for the president’s annual address,” comments the oppositionist MP Rozenko. “This is reference material. So far I have only been able to see the part which concerns the government’s social policy. I cannot say that I have found something new there, or something progressively different, except the conventional praising of the government’s social policies of the last three years. In my view, it is absolutely prejudiced and does not reflect the real developments in the social sphere. As for any systemic approaches or changes in various aspects of social policy (employment, pensions, or changing the social insurance system), I found none of that in the report. There is nothing new. Only the things that get copied from the previous addresses and never get done. Moreover, there are things which are now being declared as targets, but the opposite is being done. In particular, this is true about the social insurance, which is virtually destroyed by the president’s recent decrees. Instead, the president’s address speaks of its increasingly greater independence from the state.”

Political scientist Kostiantyn Matviienko believes that this is just another empty document.

“In 2011 the president’s address was called Modernization of the Country, in 2012 The Nation’s Social and Economic Situation, and this year we have virtually the same contents,” says Matviienko. “We cannot see any serious political innovations there. For example, the idea of electing from party lists is anything but new and is ripped from the context of party and political representation. Besides, the address says that Ukraine has had a ‘strategic pause’ in its relations with the EU. But this pause is not yet over. The worst thing about this address is that it does not say anything about the threats Ukraine is facing. One gets an impression that our nation is wearing pink glasses and thinks that life is beautiful. As far as I can judge, this is a purely formal, empty document, just like both previous addresses, and contains no strategic vision of the nation’s development. Therefore it evokes no special interest.”

Excerpts from president Viktor Yanukovych’s annual address to the Verkhovna Rada On Ukraine’s Domestic and International Situation in 2013 (president.gov.ua):

“This year, structural reforms in the national economy must be sped up, and at the same time, solutions to new challenges, caused by the global economic crisis, must be found. The next period will be a considerable trial for Ukraine, an important test of the reforms and development policy.

“Further reform of public administration system and transition to the state model, which would be focused on serving the citizens’ needs, are on the agenda. Each city and district should have an up-to-date center of administrative services. Each of them must provide a list of guaranteed services, which are the most requested by citizens and business.

“In order to improve the electoral system and electoral procedures, the feasibility of following measures should be reviewed: switching to voting for party lists with preferences, introduction of additional criteria for determining territorial boundaries of electoral districts, … issuing priority right of forming electoral commissions only to those political parties that form their factions at the Verkhovna Rada of the current convocation, ... limiting the expenditure of political parties and candidates for parliamentary elections.

“During further work on updating of the Constitution of Ukraine, the possibility of clarifying provisions of Sections 3 ‘Elections. Referendum’ and 4 ‘The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine’ should be considered. In particular, it should be stipulated for the people’s legislative initiative to be implemented by submitting a clause-by-clause draft law to the Verkhovna Rada or by putting it to a nationwide referendum.

“Development strategies for the key branches of the defense industry till the year 2025 should be created, specified, or corrected. In particular, this applies to space and rocket, aviation, shipbuilding, and radio electronic branches with a focus on innovative development of the entire country.

“We expect that the next summit of the Eastern Partnership initiative in Vilnius in the fall of 2013 will bring significant practical results for the development of relations between Ukraine and the European Union, especially regarding the signing of the Association Agreement.

“This international agreement is unique in its content among similar agreements concluded between the EU and other countries. The primary value of this agreement is that the document is a lodestar in the implementation of comprehensive domestic reforms in Ukraine.

“While mainly focusing on the European direction in its development, Ukraine does not take its attention off the Eurasian vector as an important area of national interests. It is no secret that Ukraine’s quest for its own vision and approaches to cooperation with the Customs Union of the Russian Federation, Belarus, and Kazakhstan is not always duly supported by our partners. At the same time, the matter of Ukraine’s participation in the Eurasian integration project should be considered with regard to our obligations resulting from the Protocol of Accession to the WTO and the draft Association Agreement with the European Union.

“Ukraine and Russia are independent subjects of international law, leading CIS nations whose mutual understanding and partner relations define the stability of not only their region, but of the entire continent. The Russian Federation is Ukraine’s strategic partner, with whom our country intensifies cooperation in all fields of international life. Relations with the Russian Federation are a priority direction of Ukraine’s foreign policy.

“One of the primary issues for Ukraine is the functioning of Ukraine’s effective control mechanisms over the operational activity of the Black Sea Fleet, since its stay in Ukraine has been and still is a factor, the importance of which goes beyond the bilateral format.”