Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andrii Parubii said this opening the parliamentary-civil conference entitled "Creating effective, accountable and responsible Parliament" on Friday, April 15.
Parubii said that the reformation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is one of the major issues. "I am deeply confident that the development of capacity building for the Parliament will allow making our legislature more effective," he said adding that in fact this would be the continuation of the reforms triggered by the previous leadership of the Ukrainian Parliament.
The Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada pointed to the importance of the speediest possible reforms' implementation. According to him, the fact that the previous head of the Ukrainian Parliament is now elected as the head of the Ukrainian Government "we may hope for effective cooperation and understanding."
Parubii noted that the Parliament should deepen cooperation and communication not only with the newly elected Government, but also with experts and the civil society.
"It is very hard to carry out reforms without the civil society as the reforms are beyond any politics. They have to be of society's interest and the society has to co-bear the responsibility for the implementation of reforms," he said.
The Chairperson of the Ukrainian Parliament expressed readiness and willingness to trigger large-scale reformation Ukraine needs: "There are all preconditions and there is enough of the political will."
The conference participants also were Head of Needs Assessment Mission of the European Parliament Pat Cox; co-chair of the parliamentary commission for EU-Ukraine association / Member of the European Parliament for Croatia Andrej Plenkovic; people's deputies of Ukraine, journalists, and representatives of non-government organizations.
The event will be underway from 9:30 till 17:00.
The event aims to present the report and the roadmap elaborated by the European Parliament's Needs Assessment Mission on the reformation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the civil society, mass media organizations, parliamentarians, Verkhovna Rada Secretariat, and representatives of international organizations. It also envisions a discussion of a number of important issues: mechanisms of participation of the public in the lawmaking process; principles of ethics in activity of people's deputies of Ukraine, civil monitoring of the Parliament's activity.
The conference is organized by the USAID RADA program, which is implemented by the East Europe Foundation and partners, within the framework of the Memorandum on cooperation between the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat and the UNDP in Ukraine in cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada Secretariat.