A group of European Union experts will be stationed in Ukraine to assist its government in ending its notorious human rights violations and attacking corruption in law enforcement, judiciary and public prosecution.
The advisory mission on civilian security sector reform, which started its two-year mandate in Ukraine on Dec.1, includes 50 international experts from Germany, France, Great Britain, Estonia, Hungary, Denmark and other European Union countries.
“Our joint understanding with the Ukrainian government has been that one of the major factors that impedes stability in Ukraine is the state of the civilian security sector,” Kalman Mizsei, head of the EU mission said on Dec.1. “Civil society wants change. It wants professional police respecting human rights, a prosecution that is going after real crimes, not after somebody’s enemies, courts that make judgments based on the justice of the case, rather than who is paying more.”
The mission will be headquartered in Kyiv but operating country-wide. Its budget is 13 million euros for the first year, Mizsei said. His team is expected to grow next year and include about 100 international and 75 local experts, half of which will act as advisers.
Mizsei positively assesses recently adopted law on prosecution that deprives it of supervision function and hopes the reform of prosecution and other sectors will continue. He also welcomed creation of the coalition but said many challenges related to Soviet past are ahead for Ukraine.
“When it comes to the legacy of the Soviet Union many of institutions have much too big mandates and those mandates are not properly controlled by the state,” Mizsei said adding that the issue of civilian oversight over law enforcement agencies is also a challenge.
“If we are able to have the Ukrainian leadership to establish a coordinated enough center of action for civilian security sector reform in the coming months, I find it a very successful thing,” he said. “You have started promising reform with the prosecution, it needs to be continued. I hope serious work can start in the Interior Ministry on the change of police, so it becomes much more efficient and much cleaner in its action.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]
