Editor’s Note: The Kyiv Post tracks the progress made by Ukraine’s post-EuroMaidan Revolution leaders in making structural changes in the public interest in a broad range of areas, from the defense and energy sectors, to taxation and pensions. Below is an outline of the main reforms achieved this year.
Summary
Ten steps forward, maybe seven or eight back: it’s been a year of mixed news on reform in Ukraine. On the one hand, much needed changes were made to Ukraine’s pension system in October to make it more sustainable, although lawmakers balked at raising the retirement age. And later that same month the heath sector, suffering from chronic corruption and mismanagement, was given a new lease of life by Acting Health Minister Ulana Suprun, who ushered through parliament a sweeping set of measures to get the system back on its feet.
But on the other hand lawmakers still show no willingness to start land reform in Ukraine – one of the areas in which the country’s financial backers, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, had hoped to see progress this year. Since lawmakers voted on Dec. 7 to extend the moratorium on land sales until Jan. 1, 2019, there is no chance of setting up an agricultural land market for at least another year. Most probably, there will be no reform until after the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019.
Meanwhile, despite pressure from protesters camped outside parliament, lawmakers again shelved the issue of removing their immunity from prosecution – sending two bills to the Constitutional Court for consideration. The court, however, lacks a quorum and has not functioned all year.
And worryingly, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, by pushing through changes to the civil service law, appears to be trying to game the system to improve his chance of re-election, even as Ukraine struggles to enact much needed reform of its election law.
January
Ukraine on Jan. 19 created a new public broadcaster, the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, replacing the National Television Company of Ukraine (NTU). However, problems of under-financing remain. Veteran Ukrainian broadcaster Zurab Alasania, who resigned as head of the NTU in November 2016 after complaining about the state company’s tight budget, was appointed the head of the new broadcaster in April 2017.
February
Parliament adopted a new Public Finance Management strategy, designed to bring more order to the process of drawing up a budget. Medium-term budgeting was introduced, and measures were enacted to improve the country’s finances by eliminating inefficient public spending and raising revenue collection rates.
March
Ukraine strengthened guarantees to minority shareholders by approving amendments on corporate governance in joint-stock companies that allow minority shareholders to sell their securities at market value when offered a buy-out deal.
April
The Ukrainian government adopted its action plan for 2017 to 2020, identifying five priority sectors for reforms: pension, privatization, health care, land ownership, and education.
May
Parliament adopted a strategy for the development of small and medium entrepreneurship, and a number of outdated or flawed regulations were cancelled. The European Union, meanwhile, gave the go-ahead to Ukraine to join the Regional Convention on pan-EuroMediterranean preferential rules of origin, once it has completed all internal procedures. Once it joins, on Jan. 1, 2018, Ukraine will be able to enhance trade with other signatories of the conventions, the EU said in a report.
June
In a major achievement that had a direct impact on the lives of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, the European Union granted Ukraine a visa-free regime for short term stays for Ukrainian citizens holding biometric passports. The new regime came into force on June 11. As of November, around 2 million Ukrainians had received biometric passports, allowing them to travel visa-free to the countries of the Schengen Area.
July
Ukraine on July 12 ratified its agreement with EUROPOL on cross-border cooperation and exchanges of information in police investigations, and Ukraine’s participation in joint investigations.
August
The government approved the composition of the National Board of Science and Technology. The new body is to champion scientific and innovation reforms in Ukraine, and open up Ukraine to joint scientific projects and investment from abroad.
September
After a year and nine months of provisional application, Ukraine’s Association agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement came into force on Sept. 1. From January to August, total trade between the EU and Ukraine rose by 27.1 percent compared to the same period in 2016.
Ukraine passed a new law on education on Sept. 5, provoking an immediate outcry from abroad. Hungary, Poland, Romania, Greece and Bulgaria all complained that the new law restricted the rights of their minority populations living in Ukraine. Ukraine agreed to submit the law to the Council of Europe so that it could check whether the legislation is in line with the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
Ukraine unveiled its new Supreme Court on Sept. 29, but there were concerns the reform had been sabotaged. Of the 111 appointed to the court by the High Council of Justice, 25 had earlier been vetoed by the Public Integrity Council, a civic watchdog overseeing the overhaul of Ukraine’s discredited judicial system. Moreover, another 60 of the judges appointed, while not having been vetoed by the council, were given negative assessments.
October
Ukraine’s parliament on Oct. 3 passed a presidential bill introducing a raft of amendments to Ukraine’s Economic Procedure Code, the Civil Procedure Code, the Code of Administrative Proceedings and other legislation. Critics said the changes would make it more difficult to prosecute major crimes and corruption cases because of a six-month deadline between the start of a criminal case and the filing of charges.
Also on Oct. 3, parliament voted to overhaul Ukraine’s debt-ridden pension system, which takes up 12 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product yet provide recipients with paltry benefits of less than $100 monthly. Lawmakers kept the retirement at 60 for men and 58 for women. However, it raised the minimum amount of working years in which to qualify for a pension from the present 15 years to 25 years. That will rise again, to 35 years, by 2022.
Parliament on Oct. 19 finally passed a long-awaited law to reform the health sector, based on Western models. Lawmakers also approved supporting legislation on telemedicine and amendments to the financial code that will ease the funding of the system. The reform introduces an “e-health” system, in which patients register with doctors of their choice, and then doctors sign contracts with the health ministry. The level of payments will be based on the number of patients, as well as the costs of procedures, hospital visits, and other services.
November
Parliament on Nov. 7 passed the first reading of the draft electoral code, which envisages a proportional election system with open party lists, as opposed to the present mixed system of closed part lists and single-mandate constituencies. If finally enacted, the new system should help tackle corruption by reducing the incentives for businessmen to “buy” a place on a party list, as the new system will not guarantee them a seat in parliament even if they gain a place on a list.
However, on Nov. 9 lawmakers and civil society watchdogs cried foul when parliament made changes to the civil service law that they said favored the re-election of President Poroshenko. The changes rolled back earlier reforms intended to de-politicize the civil service, as well as giving the president back powers to appoint regional governors.
Some good news came on Nov. 16, however, as parliament passed a bill to protect businesses from abuses by law enforcement. According to the bill, all searches of businesses by law enforcement will have to be video recorded, and lawyers will have to be present during property seizures. In addition, police will not be able to seize computer hardware – in the past businesses have complained that their operations have been paralyzed after their servers were seized.
But in a step backward for justice in Ukraine, on Nov. 20 all investigations into murders of EuroMaidan protesters and cases of corruption by officials of the regime of former the Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, came to a halt as the mandate of the Prosecutor General’s Office to investigate the cases came to an end. The State Investigation Bureau, which should take on the murder cases, is not yet functioning, and the National Anti-corruption Bureau, which is now to take on about 3,500 Yanukovych-era graft cases, does not have the resources to handle the caseload.
December
As the year came to an end, Ukraine’s independent anti-corruption agency came under renewed pressure from the authorities: Parliament on Dec. 6 registered a bill to dismiss Artem Sytnyk as head of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine, but an overnight campaign on the Twitter social medium provoked an angry response from Ukraine’s international backers, and early on Dec. 7 the bill disappeared from the Rada’s agenda. However, lawmakers from the pro-Presidential Bloc of Petro Poroshenko faction, together with ones from splitter groups formed after the breakup of the former Party of Regions faction, later on Dec. 7 voted to dismiss the reformist chairman of parliament’s anti-corruption committee, Yegor Soboliev.
