The fourth plenary day of the new parliament was not very productive. The biggest achievement of the session was setting the agenda for Dec.11 and 12 sessions.
The parliament also supported Oleg Lyashko and his Radical Party faction’s initiative to cancel the appointment of 15 members to management positions in committees because they had voted for the Jan. 16 “dictatorship laws” under President Viktor Yanukovych. The laws were designed to curb most freedoms in Ukraine, including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. A total of 278 deputies voted to support Lyashko’s initiative.
His faction blocked parliament’s rostrum to pressure for this vote.
“We thank our colleagues in coalition who supported our initiative and we will insist on adoption of it on Dec.11 above all others,” Lyashko said after the session. “Our faction will push for all those who vote for “dictatorship laws” to be dismissed from leadership positions in the committees.”
On Dec.11 the parliament also plans to adopt the address to Russian State Duma asking to free former pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who remains imprisoned in Russia.The new Cabinet program for 2015 is also expected to be on the agenda.
“Apart from external aggression, we have internal aggression – corruption, irresponsibility, bribery and inefficient public management”, prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said at the meeting of the Cabinet on Dec.9 before presenting the program. “The Government submits for consideration of Ukraine our vision of how to overcome these challenges and how to change the country.”
On Dec.12 lawmakers plan to vote on the bill authored by Oleksandr Turchynov, Serhiy Pashynsky and Andriy Parubiy of Yatsenyuk’s People’s Front party to cancel non-aligned status of Ukraine. The bill will restrict Ukraine from joining Russia-led Customs Union and the parliament’s Committee on national security and defense unanimously approved it, Tetyana Chornovol, head of the committee told the Kyiv Post. It will also open the way for Ukraine to apply for NATO membership in the future.
“The voting was moved to Friday because Petro Poroshenko’s bloc is anxious that it can have a negative impact on (new) Minsk agreements which are expected, though, I stick to a different point of view. Declaring such intentions would help us in the talks,” Chornovol said.
The next round of trilateral peace talks was originally planned for Dec. 9, but was later moved to Dec. 11 because of the separatists’ unwillingness to stick to the date.
Serhiy Taruta, member of parliament and former governor of Donetsk Oblast, warns that Ukraine should be careful about the non-aligned status bill. There has been no plan of actions designed for the period after the non-aligned status is cancelled, he said. “It could lead to further escalation of the situation in the east of Ukraine,” he said.
