There has been held a discussion “Parliamentary Transformation: Challenges and Achievements. Two years of the EU/UNDP project “Rada for Europe”
The event was attended by the parliamentary administration representatives, members of parliament, and a range of experts from the Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine and the EU/UNDP project “Rada for Europe”.
Opening the event, the first deputy of the chief administrative officer of Ukraine’s Parliament Petro Bodnar greeted the audience on behalf of the Parliament’s Speaker and stated certain achievements had been already notched up on the path of reforming the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. In this context, there was mentioned the road map elaborated by the European Parliament mission led by Pat Cox. The road map’s instructions were approved by the Parliament to later on become the backbone for delivering reforms pursuing the policy of all-pervading euro-integration of Ukraine. “The road map’s recommendations relate to all the parliamentary functions, including legislative process, approximation of Ukrainian legislation to EU law, observance of ethical norms and standards, as well as openness of the institution," emphasized the first deputy.
According to P. Bodnar, the implementation of the challenging programme of parliamentary reforms requires considerable efforts, political will, and consensus between political groups and factions. He also then stated: “For us, there has always been and will always be of high importance the support rendered by the European Union, the United Nations Development Programme, and the EU/UNDP project “Rada for Europe”.
More gains on this pathway were then mentioned as well, including the adoption of two draft bills on quantity of committees and proportional allocation of seats in the committees, the introduction of electronic docflow and the 2018-2020 Electronic parliamentarism strategy designed to make parliamentary activities clear and transparent for every single citizen.
Svitlana Zalishchuk, MP, thanked for the opportunity to join the complimentary address and remarked that she had her own vision upon a rapid advance in reforming Ukraine, including transforming the Parliament. The said vision takes in ideas, experience, support and resources of Ukraine’s international partners, political will of Ukrainian upper echelon as well as an efficient civil society.
The politician believes that the "Rada for Europe" programme has precisely been such a component that helped reform the Parliament in the context of its openness, accountability and its modernized work.
Martin Klaucke, Head of Operations Section 1 "Good Governance and Democratisation”, thanked for the opportunity to attend the event and stressed that the European Union was always glad to support Ukraine on its way to implementing reforms.
«It is of great interest to us that the changes introduced be as fundamental and productive as possible,” stated the official.
The participants of the event talked over the next steps of implementing the EU-UNDP "Rada for Europe" programme aimed at improving the mechanisms of open dialogue between the parliament, the citizens and the civil society, at stepping up efficiency and quality of the legislative process, as well as at modernizing the internal processes in administering the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.