Parliamentary News

Ukraine’s Parliament adopted several laws and resolutions on September 20.

Among the resolutions were:

• VRU’s appeal to international organizations on the creation of a special environmental monitoring mission to trace caused by the war (#7504),
• VRU’s appeal to international organizations on russian aggression in the Black and Azov sea and the Kerch Strait (#8015).

Laws adopted in the second reading:

• law on improving the legal basis of audit activities in Ukraine (#6245-d),
• law on the mechanism of approval by the Prosecutor General the order and list of persons of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (#7728),
• law which included the presence of three or more children under the age of 18 of a military serviceman as grounds for dismissal from military service (#7678),
• law on taxation of new housing development (#7683).

VRU also created some ad hoc commissions:

• to investigate the facts of sexual violence committed as a result of the armed aggression of the russian federation (#7645). Maryna Bardina is the chair,
• to investigate possible violations of the law in the field of receiving, distribution, transportation, storage, use for the intended purpose of humanitarian and other aid. (#0831) Serhiy Kozyr is the chair.

Ukraine’s Parliament adopted several laws on September 21 in the second reading.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine introduced the following measures:

• reintroduction of excise tax on fuel (€100/1000 l) and gas (€52/1000 l) (#7668-д),
• compensating employers for the unified social tax to stimulate employment (#6067),
• amendments to the Law "On compulsory state social insurance" (#3663),
• incorporation of rules regarding contractual jurisdiction (#5120),
• amendments to the state budget (#7669).

VRU's website is the most visited among Ukraine's state bodies' websites.

According to the Chesno movement, the VRU website had about 21 million visits during the summer of 2022, which is one million more than by the end of last year. It is also two times more than the Ukrainian President's website, the second most visited website among Ukraine's state bodies. The VRU website had the highest number of unique visitors, which was more than 2.3 million on a monthly average. The audience often visited the VRU website searching for Ukraine's Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, and Civil Code and the Constitution.

Program News

For 28 weeks, USAID RADA: Next Generation Program has been assisting Ukraine’s Parliament in its external communication within the Communication Task Force of the VRU Secretariat,

mainly through narrative development and info production for social media, both in English and Ukraine daily.

Program conducted online training on parliamentary oversight for VRU’s Committee on social policy and protection of veterans' rights.

The training, which was held on September 19-21, helped participants acquainted with the importance of parliamentary oversight and its implementation and provided information on the best international experience in the field of parliamentary oversight.

USAID RADA: Next Generation will deepen its cooperation with VRU’s Committee on Legal Policy.

On September 19, Program’s experts and the Chair of the VRU Committee on Legal Policy agreed to sign a plan of cooperation. USAID's "Rada: Next Generation" Program experts are expected to be involved in the committee's activities to strengthen its institutional capacity.

An online conference on "Preserving and Developing Ukraine's Democracy: What are the Current and Future Challenges of Democratic Transformation?" was conducted on September 21.

A discussion was held on the current situation, prospects, and challenges in constitutionalism, governance, justice, elections, media, and political parties. MP's and representatives of civil society joined the discussion. Oleksandr Kornienko, VRU first deputy Speaker attended the panel dedicated to the challenges of the parliamentary system during the war, such as the need to adopt numerous European integration laws and the maintenance of a balanced budget policy. The video is available via the link.

Program arranged discussion helped VRU and government representatives learn from the best practices of foreign offices of legislative work.

On September 23, USAID “Rada: Next Generation” Program presented the research ‘International experience of Offices of legislative work functioning,’ which was done by Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), Programs’s partner.

Experts analyzed and presented specific models of legislative offices’ operation abroad, underlined the most common challenges, and recommended how to improve legislative work in Ukraine. Moreover, invited representatives of Scotland and South African legislative offices delivered speeches and shared their personal experiences. Overall, more than 70 people participated in the meeting, including VRU Secretariat Deputy Head, MPs’ assistants, and other VRU and government representatives.

Program upcoming events

On September 28, 11 am - 12.30 pm, Program will conduct the IPTAC meeting.

The topic of the meeting is “Needs of the constituencies in the newly liberated territories of Kharkiv region: coordination between parliamentarians and the donor community during wartime“.

The agenda is available via the link: bit.ly/IPTAC_AGENDA.

Registration is available via the link: bit.ly/IPTAC_4.

On September 28-30, Program will conduct a training of trainers on the policymaking process and end-to-end legislative oversight.

The training will be launched in October. The meeting will be available via the link: bit.ly/training_policymaking.

On October 3-4, Program will conduct training on European integration

for the first group of the newly created sub-committees for EU integration in the VRU. The training will be held in cooperation with Association4U Project (with the support of the EU delegation in Ukraine).

On October 4-6 (TBC), Program will conduct training on Citizens` participation in the legislative process, Advocacy

for MP aids and NGO representatives of the Dnipro region (within the framework of the Information-consultative hub).