Parliament approved several laws and resolutions at its plenary meeting on April 10, 2023
Appeal to NATO members, NATO parliamentary Assembly on Ukraine’s membership in NATO (#9192) Laws in the first reading:
VRU Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk announced the creation of the Parliamentary office to adapt Ukrainian legislation to EU law.
On April 12, the VRU Speaker signed the decree establishing the special office in Ukraine's Parliament. According to R. Stefanchuk, “the principal tasks of the Office are to provide expert, analytical, information and documentary support to Ukraine’s Parliament committees during the drafting law procedure on EU law”. The work of the Parliamentary office will be carried out at the expense of international technical assistance.
USAID RADA: Next Generation Activity (RANG) drafted a cooperation plan with MP Oleg Seniutka, European Solidarity faction. On April 11,Program conducted a meeting with Oleg Seniutka to plan cooperation with RANG between parliamentary factions and local branches of political parties in two pilot regions to build and pilot models and instruments for better interaction of MPs with voters in electoral regions in accordance with the new Electoral Code. The activity will strengthen the capacity of MPs' teams in electoral regions. It was preliminary agreed to work in two regions (Lviv and Kharkiv or Dnipropetrovsk).
Program will cooperate on the digitalization of the legislative process with the Digital Transformation Ministry. On April 10, Program conducted a meeting with the group in charge of strategic planning in the Ministry of digital transformation regarding possible cooperation. The meeting was arranged as a follow-up of the RANG’s event with Fotios Fitsilis from Hellenic Optical Character Recognition on April 5, 2023. The ministry will include RANG experts in the work on digitalization. The activity will strengthen government-parliament interaction in terms of cooperation on drafting and amending adopted legislation.
Program has built the synergy with the EU-funded Pravo Justice Project to facilitate the comprehensive post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) for the VRU Committee on legal policy. On April 11, USAID RADA: Next Generation conducted a meeting with the Pravo Justice Project to collaborate on the implementation of the PLS tool for the monitoring of the legislation that Pravo Justice developed with the Ministry of Justice. RANG would send the work plan to the Committee and Pravo Justice for further consultations.
Program had a monthly coordination meeting with the Parliamentary Research Service (PRS) to discuss strategic outcomes and challenges. On April 12, RANG discussed a PRS study visit to Austria’s Research Service and the Parliamentary Research Service in the Czech Republic on April 17-27, 2023, the launch of the intern program as RANG will continue supporting the PRS interns to enable effective PEC operations.
USAID RADA: Next Generation assisted the VRU Committee on State Building, Local Governance, Regional, and Urban Development in developing the post-legislative scrutiny (PLS) report on the cooperation of territorial communities. The Research was presented on April 10 during the VRU Committee’s hearing. The research allows to analyze of the effectiveness of the cooperation between territorial communities during the local self-government reform and within martial law, but helps the committee prepare recommendations to the Ministry of Infrastructure on improving the legislation. The PLS Research was carried out in accordance with the methodology of post-legislative control used by the UK Parliament.
Program started preparation for the first study visit of UA MPs to the UK within the Peer-to-Peer Partnership Initiative. On April 13, Program organized the first meeting between UK-Ukrainian MPs, Antony Higginbotham MP (Member of Parliament for Burnley and Padiham) and Volodymyr Kreidenko (MP for the cities of Melitopol, Boyarka and Kramatorsk - Servant of the People fraction). It was agreed that the study visit would be arranged in June 2023 for an MP to learn from best practices on interaction with voters. The visit will be organized within the Peer-to-Peer Partnership Initiative launched by RANG to build strong partnerships between Ukrainian MPs and members of other parliaments in order to address challenges brought by russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Program facilitated workshops to enhance the teamwork of the Parliamentary Education Center (PEC). On April 13, Program's partner American Councils consultant Peter Shmigel conducted two workshops for the PEC staff on communications and managing workplace conflict. Peter Shmigel also met with VRU Secretary General Viacheslav Shtuchnyi and Deputy Secretary General Mykola Shevchuk to discuss possible collaboration of the VRU Secretariat and VRU Education Center with their counterparts from the Australian Parliament.
Program arranged a consensus-building session with MP in the Odesa region. On April 13, 2023, Program's partner, International Republican Institute, IRI conducted a consensus-building session with MP Oleksiy Honcharenko in his constituency in Podilsk, Odesa oblast. Local stakeholders, voters, local self-government, and small businesses from the nearest communities. They got a chance to discuss the most relevant and recent MP initiatives, while the meeting allowed MP to take into account stakeholders’ opinions, in particular, the draft law on the demobilization of military servicemen/women.