Focus on Ukraine, November 10-16, 2008
November 10
VR Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk proposed to all
parliamentary factions a Memorandum of Provisional
Cooperation.
The speaker believes
that today there is no other solution, seeing as the economic
crisis persists and holding early elections is
impossible.
Yatsenyuk said this
memorandum requires not only the signatures of all political
faction leaders, but also those of President Viktor Yushchenko and
Premier Yulia Tymoshenko.
Premier Yulia Tymoshenko welcomed the proposal
of VR Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk concerning unification of all
branches of power in order to resolve the economic crisis. At the
same time, the Party of Regions did not support the initiatives of
the speaker.
First Deputy Head of the
Party of Regions Oleksandr Yefremov described this initiative as an
“attempt at legalization of lawlessness”, which will result in the
irresponsible work of the parliament.
The Lytvyn Bloc and the Party of Regions
accused VR Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk of falsification of the
anti-crisis law. The speaker is being
accused of adding to the law already passed by the parliament a
norm on indexation of the minimum wage to the rate of
inflation.
As a reminder, the members of
parliament did not support the norm on freezing the level of
minimum wages for two years.
Furthermore,
there is no mention of an increase in social payouts that the
members of parliament insisted on in the document signed by the
president.
The government of Ukraine and the country’s
leading metallurgy enterprises signed a memorandum that will help
pull the metallurgy sector out of the current economic
crisis.
Representatives of the
metallurgy sector agreed to the conditions proposed by the Cabinet
of Ministers concerning layoffs, wage cuts and a reduction in the
prices of their products for domestic consumers. In return, the
government promised to lower the prices of electricity and offer
these enterprises tax breaks and privileges on customs
duties.
November 11
The Ukrainian parliament spent the entire day
debating staffing. The parliamentarians
reminded the speaker about the resignation he tendered two months
ago. Meanwhile, the Party of Regions only managed to submit the
issue of the speaker’s resignation to the order of the day only on
the second attempt.
The Yulia Tymoshenko
Bloc and Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense are against
Yatsenyuk’s resignation. The parliamentarians failed to vote on
this issue today.
November 12
The parliament dismissed Arseniy Yatsenyuk
from his post as the speaker. 233 of the
350 members of parliament registered in the session hall voted in
favour, including 175 members of the Party of Regions, 27 members
of the Communist Party, 20 members of the Lytvyn Bloc, 10 members
of the United Center, which are part of the OUPSD and one member of
the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.
Yatsenyuk was
elected the speaker of the house on the quota of the OUPSD. He
tendered his resignation in September immediately after the
parliamentary coalition was officially disbanded.
Former VR Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced at a briefing that he plans to form a new political force. He said the votes of 10 parliamentarians of the OUPSD bloc and the United Center are nothing short of treason.
Premier Yulia Tymoshenko told journalists at a
press conference in the Cabinet of Ministers she is convinced that
the dismissal of Yatsenyuk could not have happened without a
directive of the president.
Tymoshenko said she believes the dismissal of Yatsenyuk is a
pretext for holding early parliamentary elections.
November 13
Ukraine’s
parliament postponed the issue of choosing a new speaker until next
week.
Political factions will hold
talks regarding a candidate to replace Yatsenyuk over the next few
days.
Volodymyr Lytvyn, Adam Martynyuk,
Ivan Pliushch and Oleksandr Lavrynovych have been named possible
candidates for the post of speaker of the parliament.
The parliament of Ukraine will hold committee
meetings until next week and reconvene on November 18.
Members of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc presume
that the government will be dismissed after a new speaker of the
parliament is elected. They believe that
the current Minister of Defense Yuriy Yekhanurov could be the new
“technical premier”.
At the same time,
members of the Party of Regions say they have no intentions of
raising the issue of the dismissal of the Cabinet of Ministers in
the next three months.
Leader of the
Party of Regions Viktor Yanukovych said the formation of a
coalition in the VR is problematic.
November 14
President Viktor Yushchenko stated at the
4th Energy Summit in Baku that next year Ukraine will
have as sufficient reserve of in order to start pumping oil to
Western European through the Odesa-Brody.
Ukraine, Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan, Turkey, Poland, Baltic countries, the United States and
the European Commission participated in the summit. The
participants supported plans for the transportation of petroleum
through Ukraine and gas from Central Asia and the Caspian Sea to
Europe, circumventing Russia.
In addition
to that, Yushchenko said by the middle of next year there will be a
new government in Ukraine that will foster the implementation of
this project.
President Viktor Yushchenko informed after the closing of the
energy summit in Baku that he is ready to hold political
consultations on November 17 to appoint a new speaker of
parliament.
President Yushchenko anticipates that a new speaker will be
appointed on Tuesday or Wednesday.
He added that the priority task is having a functional parliament
that is capable of adopting a decision on consolidation or
financing early elections.
The National Rukh of
Ukraine party (NRU) held a meeting behind closed
doors.
The main objective of the meeting was
to resolve the issue of uniting this political force with the Yulia
Tymoshenko Bloc.
Parliamentarians from the Ternopil, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk
that are close to Kendzior are against such unification.
Kendzior says the opinions of more than 25,000 members of the
Rukh party in Western Ukraine opposed to potential unification with
the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Ukraine being brought under the
Russian sphere of influence are being ignored. The members of Rukha
also reaffirmed their support of the president’s actions on
strengthening Ukrainian statehood.
The congress closed without any decisions being made. It was
decided that them members of the party will come to a consensus at
the meeting of the party’s governing body. As a reminder, today the
NRU is part of the Our Ukraine-People’s Self-defense
bloc.
- May 19, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, May 12 – 18, 2008 - May 26, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, May 19-25, 2008 - June 2, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, May 26-June 1, 2008 - June 9, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, June 2-8, 2008 - June 16, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, June 9-15, 2008 - June 23, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, June 16-22, 2008 - June 30, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, June 23-29, 2008 - July 7, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, June 30-July 6, 2008 - July 14, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, July 7-13, 2008 - July 21, 2008
Focus on Ukraine, July 14-20, 2008
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