There are // bodies in focus of our committee scan today:
Committee on Social Policy, Employment and Pension Provision
On October 10, the committee held a working meeting with representatives of the central executive bodies and the NATO Trust Fund (for medical rehabilitation). The meeting was attended by members of parliament, representatives from the Ministry of Social Policy, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defence, the NATO Representation to Ukraine, the Mission of Ukraine to NATO, trade unions, the public, veteran and volunteer organizations, where best practices of medical rehabilitation in accordance with NATO standards were discussed.
The moderator of the meeting, the first deputy head of the committee Serhii Kaplin said: "The NATO Trust Fund’s best practices in medical rehabilitation are unique, invaluable and we are ready to learn and share their experiences".
Then, Frederic Peugeot, Partnership for Peace Office Chief & NATO Trust Fund Projects Manager at NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), made a presentation on the Trust Fund’s activities over medical rehabilitation in Ukraine.
Afterwards, the Director of Recovery at Help for Heroes (H4H) David Richmond reported on the UK troops healthcare and rehabilitation system. He emphasized that the main goal of such services is to return the wounded, injured, or ill to the military service and provide them with an active, independent and high-grade life. He also stressed the need to support the servicemen’s families.
A Ukrainian defence ministry’s senior recovery officer V.Pysanko clued up the audience of the state of play in local medical rehabilitation and outlined the areas of future cooperation with the Trust Fund.
Summing up the gathering, Serhii Kaplin suggested that such meetings continue to be held, involving other parliamentary committees and public organizations as well.
Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Policy
The committee held an international conference on the topic “An independent and financially stable public broadcaster as integral part of a democratic society”. The committee event, co-arranged with the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening freedom of media, access to information and reinforcing public broadcasting system in Ukraine”, has gained a broad-scale attendance both from home and international organizations, including the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the diplomatic corps.
There were ample and productive debates over the current state of play in home public broadcasting and the problems peculiar to this sphere, including gaps in the law and poor financing that both significantly hinder its further development and reforming.
In his opening speech, Marten Ehnberg, Head of Office, The Council of Europe Office in Ukraine stated: “Having attained a lot, there is a need now for Ukraine to go on talking about the further work pointed at ensuring a proper financing of the public broadcasting, in particular”.
Viktoriia Siumar, the head of the Committee on Freedom and Information Policy, noted that today in the Parliament, there are different opinions as to whether the broadcasting reform develops in the right way. "For Ukrainians, this reform is first of all needed to ensure having such a source of information that would be beyond all doubt, meeting all the standards of journalism and providing promptest and high-quality information, giving the opportunity to understand basic development problems of our state,” she said.
"Despite the above said restrictions, the public broadcasting in Ukraine has achieved impressive results in TV and radio ratings, optimization of the structure," said Hugues Mingarelli, the EU Ambassador to Ukraine, adding that Ukraine could hope for the European community’s support.
The Chairman of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) Zurab Alasania outlined the company’s achievements notched up during the ‘freshman’ year elapsed, having then also referred in detail on the impending critical underfunding.
Pending the international conference, there took place a wide discussion over the issue of financing and further development of the public broadcasting in Ukraine.
The conferees emphasized the particular importance of ensuring the public broadcaster’s editorial independence in the run-up to elections.