There is no guarantee the smooth operation of the Parliament of Ukraine.
Ratings Poroshenko and Groisman will depend on the autumn events in Parliament.
Elections to the Supreme Council
The most obvious, although not the most important reason for failure of work of Parliament – the desire to achieve re-election. Want almost entirely representatives of Batkivshchyna, Samopomich, Opposition bloc, and a number of other deputies. But even among those who support the idea of early elections, there is no unity.
In particular, the “Samopomich” insists that in the beginning it adopted a new electoral system is purely proportional with open party lists instead of the current hybrid, half-proportional (closed lists), half of the majority. But opposed by almost all of the current nominees.
Therefore, no new elections with the current electoral system, nor the option of re-election with the transition to the new system do not have the support of most MPs. And to provide the advantage some of these options require additional arguments.
That is, the motive of re-elections can be unifying for the majority of members only along with some other motives. Such motives do exist, they can count half a dozen. And at least some of them may be even stronger reasons for failure of work of Parliament than the desire of re-election.
The performance of the GPU MPs
In July, the Parliament gave consent to criminal prosecution of four people’s deputies: Oles Dovgy (“will of the people”), Maksym Polyakov (people’s front), Borislav Rosenblatt (“Petro Poroshenko Bloc”) and Mikhail Dobkin (“the Opposition bloc”). In September the Prosecutor General’s office again will make a presentation to Andrey Lozovoy (Radical party of Oleh Liashko) and Evgeny Deydey (people’s front) and adds to them Denis Zensursula (also “popular front”).
But that’s not the entire list. Specialized anti-corruption Prosecutor’s office (SAP) is preparing cases against 40 MPs. This was announced by acting Chairman of the procedural Committee of Parliament Pavlo Pynzenyk. “I had information that about 50 ready-to-transfer cases formed in law enforcement for deputies. I asked this question to the CEO of SAP Nazar Holodnitsky right during one of the sessions of the Committee on rules, and Mr. Nazar literally said, “Well, not 50, and 40″” – said Pinzenyk.
The desire to avoid such developments – are serious enough motive to block the work of Parliament. Whether this will lead to re-elections – it will depend on the degree of persistence of HCP and SAP.
The draft law on occupied territories
In September, the official submission by the President of the bill “On peculiarities of state policy on restoration of state sovereignty of Ukraine on the temporarily occupied territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine”. A draft version of this project, the media published back in July, however, the NSDC Secretary Oleksandr Turchynov said that the bill “will be introduced after discussing it with our strategic partners”.
Poroshenko had the opportunity to tell the President of the European Council Donald Tusk, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, U.S. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the US special envoy Kurt Volker and Secretary of defense James Mattis during their visits to Kiev in July-August. It is also known that Turchynov discussed the project with the Ambassador of Japan Shigeki Sumi.
Perhaps, after these discussions, the draft will be finalized. But in any case, we can expect that he will meet resistance in Parliament from two parties. To disrupt the adoption of this law can try, on the one hand, Pro-Russian deputies, the other deputies, acting with the supposedly ultra-Patriotic positions.
In particular, the “Samopomich” insists on its own draft law “On temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation the territory of Ukraine”. At last session deputies of “Samopomich” repeatedly demanded to include this project in the agenda. If in September will be accepted the presidential bill, “Samopomich” will be thrown in the trash. Therefore, the party Andriy Sadovy is interested to disrupt the adoption of the presidential draft. For this, it may try to block the Parliament’s work not only inside, but outside, organizing protests by ultra-Patriotic slogans.
Reform Groisman and Poroshenko
Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy has announced that he will invite the deputies to commence work at the forthcoming session of Parliament with the reform of education. In addition, the Parliament will consider two reforms prepared by the government: medical and pension. And also the next stage of judicial reform in the presidential bill No. 6232, which amends the Economic procedure code, Civil procedure code, administrative procedure Code and other legislative acts.
“We will have autumn of the reforms as a whole,” says the speaker. According to him, the bills to reform health care and education for the second reading submitted about a thousand amendments to each. To the bill, providing for judicial reform, about 5.5 thousand amendments.
“I think that in the first week no more than two of these reforms will be considered” – predicted paruby. He admitted that some of the bills may be sent for a repeat first reading for revision, but expressed the hope that for each of the four reforms will be a positive result.
However, these cautious forecasts may be too optimistic. Many in the Parliament are interested to disrupt the adoption of reforms prepared by the government, simply because these reforms laid the basis for its PR Prime Minister Vladimir Groisman. For example, Yulia Tymoshenko on August 27 traveled to the cities of Rivne and Sarny, said that “the government calls the reform strategy of the radical reduction of Ukrainians living on their land”. Among the most devastating she called medical and pension reforms. In Romny Tymoshenko once again stressed: “When you are talking about “reforms”, then you know that they are a strategy to eliminate the Ukrainian nation.”
Similarly, bill No. 6232 of judicial reform will be torpedoed simply because he is presidential. And if there is not enough votes to have all these projects to fill up, you can expect a blocking of the Parliament – both inside and outside.
Budget-2018
First Deputy Prime Minister Stepan Kubiv, head of the Ministry of economic development and trade, has announced that the government intends to present the draft budget for 2018 in time – that is, 15 September, as required by the Budget code. This date will be another “red flag” for all the parliamentary opposition.
Attempts to fill the budget will be made at the stage of the first reading, and voting in the second reading and in General. It is not excluded that representatives of various opposition forces will try to derail the adoption of the budget in 2018 only in order to prove the incapacity of Parliament and the need for re-election.
Tranche of the IMF loan
Ukraine hopes till the end of the year to receive IMF $3 billion Otherwise there is a risk to the stability of the hryvnia, because the next few months will need to repay earlier loans and placed Eurobonds. In particular, it is necessary to pay old debts, the IMF (even for the stand-by arrangement). On 3 August, the NBU transferred the IMF’s $450 million, the next payment will be in November.
In General, however, until the end of 2019 Ukraine must pay foreign creditors about $13 billion Without the IMF, there is clearly not enough. But it needs to fulfill its obligations, including in reforms.
The IMF already made a number of concessions to the government, including the postponement of land reform. Therefore, the new concessions probably will not. Now the IMF considers crucial pension reform. If it is failed, the IMF will take $3 billion next year, and to get them, will have to do more and land reform.
So everyone complicate the work of the Cabinet and the national Bank would disrupt the work of Parliament, thereby to disrupt the adoption of laws necessary for the continuation of cooperation with the IMF. And then the financial problems of Ukraine will grow like a snowball.
“Marshall plan” for Ukraine
In February this year, speaking in Brussels at a high-level conference “Encouragement and direction: the Reboot of Ukrainian reforms”, Groisman called on foreign partners to form a “Marshall Plan” for the transformation of Ukraine, similar to a plan by which the United States helped rebuild the economies of Western Europe after the second world war.
The plan for Ukraine seems to be preparing the European Union and donors in 2014, In February 2015, the planned large donor conference, but it did not take place, and the idea was shelved.
This year, however, this idea was removed from obscurity and began to be implemented. In late March, the Congress of the European people’s party (this is the most influential party in the European Parliament), held on Malta, adopted a resolution which called on the EU to develop a long-term plan to support Ukraine.
In June it became known that such a plan has already developed a policy of Lithuania together with the Ukrainian colleagues. It provides for the allocation to support reforms in Ukraine 5 billion euros annually. The head of mission of Ukraine to the EU Nikolay Tochitskii reported that this project has prospects. “There was a presentation of the plan in the European institutions and the European Commission seriously enough to him,” said Tochitskii. He predicted that the project’s fate becomes clearer “after a month and a half.”
A political decision on this issue can be taken 24 November at the fifth summit of “Eastern partnership”, which will be held in Brussels. These summits are held every two years since 2009 Previous (fourth) was held in may 2015 in Riga, the first three were held in Prague, Warsaw and Vilnius. The fact that the fifth summit will be held in Brussels, increases the likelihood that it will be taken considerable for Ukraine of the decision, including the approval of the “Marshall Plan”.
Annual 5 billion euros is not a loan and grant aid. Naturally, this money can be spent only for its intended purpose in accordance with the plan. This will vigilantly monitor “supervisors-managers” from the EU, which will appear in the Ukrainian ministries and departments.
The flywheel of the bureaucratic machine of the EU is very hard to start, but when it is already running, its just as hard to stop. A guaranteed way to spoil the outcome of the Brussels summit is, of course, to demonstrate the political crisis in Ukraine. Perhaps some Ukrainian politicians explicitly state that you first need to change the power in Ukraine, and only then Ukraine will be worthy of aid from the EU.
At stake is a lot. If Poroshenko of Ukraine will be brought from Brussels “Marshall Plan” or at least its promise, their ratings will go up. And then the chance to change the government at the next election (special or regular) will fall sharply. Therefore, this autumn will indeed be decisive in many respects.
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