On August 4, Ukraine’s President signed law #7310, which contained the provisions on the research service of Ukraine’s Parliament. Thus, the legislation came into force.
USAID has supported the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in various efforts to establish the parliamentary research service to assist MPs and their aids in preparing necessary background information for the plenary meetings. USAID parliamentary programs arranged several meetings with the research services of other parliaments to adopt the best experience worldwide. USAID provided the VRU leadership and VRU Secretariat with the research service model, structure, and features.
While adopting the resolution, MPs recognized russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and called on other like-minded countries to express the same.
The document stresses that russia has supported and financed terrorist regimes and organizations in various ways for many years, directly and indirectly, as the largest supplier of weapons to the Assad regime in Syria and as the perpetrator, for example, of poisoning the Skripal family or shooting down flight MH17.
According to the resolution, in order to achieve the goals of its illegal, aggressive war, russia seeks to intimidate and demoralize the Ukrainian people and armed forces, paralyzing the functioning of the state in order to occupy Ukraine.
The aforementioned table is introduced to ensure the implementation of Ukraine’s obligation enshrined in the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.
mainly through narrative development and info production for social media, both in English and Ukraine daily. Program’s team disseminated two issues of the information digest “Parliaments on the Frontline,” including the English language version and the Ukrainian one. English-language digest “Parliaments on the Frontline” has been sent.
On August 9-10, USAID "Rada: Next Generation" Program's experts participated in the meetings of sub working groups that deal with the issues of Parliament-Government interaction and Code of ethics and the status of MPs. The participants of the meetings discussed the submitted proposals on the interaction between the government and the Parliament as well as the planning of legislative activities, and parliamentary oversight over government.
The next meeting of the Parliament-Government interaction unit is planned for August 17.
On August 10, USAID "Rada: Next Generation" Program's experts Yuliia Kyrychenko and Oleksandr Marusiak held a discussion with an MP, Mr. Oleksandr Merezhko, Chair of the VRU’s committee on foreign policy on the issues of legal regulation of terrorist state status. Program’s experts stressed that it would be better to approve that through VRU resolution, not a draft law.
On August 11, USAID "Rada: Next Generation" Program arranged the third meeting in a series of stakeholder discussions regarding the Green Book of Legislative Process, an analytical paper that systematizes the main normative and practical problems of the legislative process in Ukraine. Particularly, almost 50 participants identified the Rules of Procedure as the major issue of the day. Namely, the fact that the President of Ukraine does not always provide his proposals to the approved legislation and does not sign the approved laws in time. Besides, according to Ukraine’s current legislation, the official publication of the approved legal acts remains the final version of the document, which does not reflect the realities of wartime, nor the 2022 year.
During the event, experts, MPs participated in the online poll on the legislative process and noted that better coordination between the parliament, particularly VRU’s committees and the government, is expected.
MP, Olena Moshents, Servant of the People faction, applied RANG’s Program analysis for her last blog posts 'Money for the restoration of Ukraine: problems and prospects of confiscation abroad' and 'Economic development: education against the "shadow economy". RANG contributed to these pieces by providing info products: InfoBrief ‘Preventing economy’s shadowing’, ‘Exemption from liability for economic/corruption offenses’, ‘International experience of reparations’.
to the PEC, Deputy Head of the VRU Secretariat Mykola Shevchuk and Head of the Information Department of the VRU Secretariat Taras Pastushenko. Earlier, Program’s partner American Councils based on the current PEC Strategic Plan supported the development of the Program for PEC activity in martial law, which outlines the priorities, main activities, approaches and organization of the PEC for systemic and structural approach in its work. Both documents, Program for PEC activity in martial law and Assessment will be the basis for developing the new PEC strategic and operational plan in the post-war period to incorporate relevant international best practices.
The registration for the event сan be found via the link: bit.ly/RANG_gp.