“Dismissal of Yulia Tymoshenko and other political prisoners, cease prosecution of the opposition and enforcement of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, including decisions concerning Yuriy Lutsenko and Judge Oleksander Volkov, must become a prerequisite for signing the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU” – said the leader of the European Party of Ukraine, People’s Deputy of Ukraine, Mykola Katerynchuk during a briefing in the corridors of the Parliament on January 10, 2013.
“On February 25, the EU-Ukraine Summit will be held in Brussels. The main issue of the Summit is to prevent the curtailment of democracy in Ukraine. Yesterday, on January 9, the ECHR adopted a resolution, which will have significant implications for the judicial system of Ukraine after becoming final. The Court decided that the dismissal of a judge for violating the pledge by the High Council of Justice violates Art.6 of the Convention. Voting in the Parliament by one People’s Deputy instead the other is also illegitimate. The judge of the Supreme Court, Volkov, who was unfairly dismissed, must be renewed. As for other illegally dismissed judges, they must be reinstated too. If these requirements are not complied, then there will be a reason to expect that the Summit will end in failure. The last Ukraine-EU Summit was held in December, 2011 in Kyiv. The leaders of the European Union did not sign the Agreement because of the problems with democracy in Ukraine”, – said Mykola Katerynchuk in his speech.
The parliamentarian said that these requirements were set out in the draft resolution On the Declaration of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine “On Support of Ukraine’s integration into the European Union”, which had been submitted to the Parliament by the United Opposition. He also announced that he had requested to include the resolution in the agenda of the session and be voted on that day or the following day.
“I am very pleased to know that the content of all these resolutions actually repeats the decision of the VI Congress of the European Party of Ukraine of December 10, 2011. A similar draft resolution On the Appeal to the President of Ukraine “On Supporting the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union” was registered on December 16, 2011. Unfortunately, the resolution was rejected”- said Mykola Katerynchuk.
“Now no one talks about the fact that the government of Mykola Azarov actually interrupted the implementation of the Law “On the State Program of the Adaptation of Ukrainian Legislation to the European Union Legislation”. Since 2010, the adaptation of the Ukrainian legislation to the requirements of the EU has actually stopped. Special department of the Ministry of Justice was disbanded, the experts were dismissed. Because of this, the European Commission froze the program of the assistance to Ukraine in the amount of several hundred million Euros and Ukrainian goods are not allowed into the European markets. In fact, the only area in which the current government is trying to do something is the Action Plan on liberalization of the visa regime for Ukraine. However, this project has also failed. So far, the government has not developed, and the Parliament has not adopted the Laws of Ukraine “On the Liability of Legal Persons for the Corruption Offenses”, “On the Amendments to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine Regarding Improvement of the Confiscation Procedure” and a number of other laws, without which mitigation of visa regime with Europe is impossible. A number of already approved laws that are necessary for the implementation of the European principles, such as the Law of Ukraine “On Gas Market”, are ignored by the government”, – said the MP.
“According to the aforementioned information and Section 8 of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Program of the Adaptation of Ukrainian Legislation to the European Union legislation”, I demand a report of the Prime Minister Mykola Azarov on the status of the program “On the Adaptation of Ukrainian Legislation to the EU Legislation” for the last three years”- added Mykola Katerynchuk.
Press Service
European Party of Ukraine