On Friday, Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Groysman summarized the results of the first year of work of the Verkhovna Rada of the eighth convocation. In his speech, the Chairperson of the Ukrainian Parliament characterized the year of work of the Ukrainian Parliament as "the year of hard work on huge challenges."

Groysman noted that the assessment of work of the parliamentarians should be "quite self-critical, however, objective."

The text of the speech:

"There are five theses, which in my view, are determinative in estimation of our work.

The first thesis I would like to tell about touches the values of the Revolution as criteria of estimation of our actions on the whole as the power, and reforms.

A criterion of our work's assessment should be how good we are in addressing the issues we are facing.

The Verkhovna Rada of current convocation is a part of the Ukrainian authorities reloaded by the Revolution. All of us are now facing a challenge — we have to answer what the people went out on the streets for two years ago.

On November 21, when the Government of [then Prime Minister Mykola] Azarov announced termination of the signature of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, the first Maidans [rallies] started to be gathered in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities and towns. The people demanded return of their future to them.

After the tragic night of November 29-30, when the police beat peaceful protesters, millions of people went out on the streets. The people demanded justice.

When they were not heard, instead the pressure [of the law enforcement bodies] started to be toughened, the people went out to protect their dignity.

In present conditions it is quite difficult to maintain dignity. I believe this is the mission of today's authorities and the mission of you and me as their part: all together we have to ensure the way towards our European future; restore justice in the society through establishment of supremacy of law; return the feeling of dignity to the people.

These values are integral part of the reforms required by the country and the people. As lawmakers we have to ensure legislating of these reforms.

Any reforms, any changes we have to struggle for now have certain risks.

The level of trust in the authorities today indicates that we all — all Ukrainian authorities do not always meet the expectations of the society concerning the rates and depth of these reforms. I believe that it is not only our guilt, but also our woe.

As many of those, who became representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, I had high hopes that we would rapidly manage to ensure changes we expected for many years. Today I have fewer delusions and more experience, including, the negative one.

I believe that many of the present here will agree with me: I underestimated the risks we faced.

The scale of our disaster. We all understood we needed changes, but we were not aware of how much effort it takes to change the whole system. The more I got to know the more I understood there was no field in the state, in the life of the society, that would not need changes, reforms.

Secondly, I would like to present some words on the institutional weakness. The level of degradation of the whole governing system in the state appeared to be merely catastrophic. The number of people able to elaborate reforms, elaborate a clear action plan, and to implement that plan appeared to be very small. Working at the Government, and now at the Verkhovna Rada, I based my position on experts from social medium, and international experts. However, everyone, who at least at once tried to embody reforms, knows that any reform should go through a long path from the theory to the moment of practical implementation. Thus, the deficit of governing skills is one of the key constraining factors.

At the same time, when finally we start to change the system, I do not know where this system takes its strengths, it actually starts to resist hard. In many cases that resistance is a manifestation of mere human fears, however, the resistance acquires the systemic nature as in many cases officials got used to act not in the interests of the people and the state, but in their own interests. Big and small oligarchs mobilize the system to resist any positive changes.

And when we finally start to get through all these challenges and barriers, one more deterrent emerged — the populism. Our political tradition is still built on playing with people's moods, on beautiful mottos and hollow promises. The greater and deeper the problems in the society are, the greater is that "rust."

I am not wrong considering populism the worst problem of nowadays. Today, unfortunately, this threat is one of the most remarkable threats to success of the reforms.

I would like to tell a couple of words about our results. It is obvious: there are some.

I will surely say about what, in my view, we have failed in. But I have to tell about what we have already done. I have to be objective. We have to openly speak either about difficulties and failures and about what has already been done.

This Parliament, which is, probably, the most criticized by the society of any other Parliament before, is in fact thrice as effective as the previous ones: over the year we have so far adopted over 800 legislative acts.

Of course the number is not the indicator if there is no quality. But the major quality indicator is the fact that the Ukrainian Parliament has adopted every important decision, every decision Ukraine required.

We always find more votes than we need to adopt one or another decision in this session hall when we eye the pro-Ukrainian decisions. Yesterday, we also took those decisions and found 250, 270 and even over 300 votes.

And now some words about some things more specifically. It was you and I who have adopted all of required decisions to consolidate the defensive capacities. The Ukrainian Parliament is also among those who deserve for credit for the principle improvements of the Ukrainian army in comparison to what it was like one year and a half ago.

I would like to remind about our resolution regarding Ukraine's cancelling its non-aligned status. In this very hall all of necessary decisions were adopted to ensure financial stabilization and further financial support from the side of our international partners. We've adopted a package of laws facilitating the visa-free regime for Ukraine. I would like to note that our parliamentary diplomacy also deserves for credit for ratification of the Agreement with the European Union by national parliaments of the EU member states.

We have adopted the package of laws for proper organization of the fight against corruption and we have also given a start to the reform of the law enforcement system and the judiciary. We have started a key structural reform which separates the European future from the post-Soviet past. We have started a specific reform on decentralization of powers. We have started deoligarchisation of the Ukrainian economy, we've taken essential steps for formation of democratic media, we've provided mass media with open information about the structure of property, information about end beneficiaries. We've started restoration of the historical justice - laws on decommunization. That was a fundamental decision consolidating our identity and restoration of the historical justice.

This is not a complete list of decisions. I would like to emphasize that a big part of laws we adopted had failed to come to this hall for years. In previous years it was hard to imagine that such laws can be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine at all. I think those deputies present in the hall now who were members of the Parliament of the previous convocations can confirm this.

I also state that although boldly lobbyist laws sometimes come to this hall at present, they have virtually no chances to be adopted in this Parliament. I don't think anybody can give examples of boldly lobbyist laws we have voted for.

We've begun to get rid of chaos in the work of the Verkhovna Rada, which was one of its traditions. We've endorsed the Plan of legislative provision of reforms - a document based on all strategic documents and which virtually represents an operational plan.

Accordingly, our work is becoming more structured and focused on true priorities.

And finally, in cooperation with the European Parliament we have commenced the reform of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. You know there is a special Mission headed by our colleague Pat Cox. Together with our colleagues - people's deputies of Ukraine we are working at changing the operation of the Ukrainian Parliament from inside to see the Ukrainian Parliament become a European one. In particular, we have begun introduction of elements of e-Parliament, reorganization of the operation of the Staff, introduction of a new system for preparing plenary session meetings.

The Roadmap of Reforms is expected to be ready in January and our European partners will help us implement it. But it is possible to state today that it is the largest attempt to reform the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in all years of Ukraine's independence. I am confident we have enough political will to realize decisions that have yet to be made.

And, probably, the most important thing: regardless of all our internal difficulties we still have unity and ability to make decisions. We have not justified expectations of those interested in destabilizing the situation in Ukraine at any expense, including through dissolution of the Parliament. I think it is obvious that dissolution of the Parliament can cause a large crisis in the Ukrainian State.

I would like to tell separately about our incomplete work. There are a lot of positive results of our work, but at the same time I feel certain disappointment regarding our work. Where were we incomplete? Certain lack of confidence in the Ukrainian Parliament largely accounts for our failure to become a Parliament of responsible deputies. It is a pity that the current convocation of the Parliament has failed to fully acknowledge that being a people's deputy means work, duties, rather than privileges. Disciple of people's deputies during plenary session meetings remains a big problem affecting the efficiency of our work. In most cases it poses risk of failure to adopt decisions, including vitally important decisions, by the Ukrainian Parliament. Today we can fight this disgraceful practice only through involving the society and we have opened information about the work of deputies, but the problem remains.

Another shameful thing is unparliamentary conduct of people's deputies in this hall and outside it. We must achieve results by adopting legislation, rather than through application of physical force. We cannot hide behind the deputy immunity and commit violence. We've adopted several decisions to strip immunity from some of those who disgraced the authority of deputies, but we have failed to adopt a decision to terminate deputy immunity. I want to urge once again the competent committee to submit proposals to the Verkhovna Rada on this matter.

I want to say the following: there can be no immunity from responsibility for any criminal offenses. Everything related to the parliamentary work, everything related to a political stance must be protected absolutely. And we have to do this.

We have yet to adopt a number of decisions the society expects us to. They have not been rejected, but in some cases it is hard for us to arrive at a compromise for the sake of a positive voting. Regrettably, in some cases political interests are higher than common sense. I think we have yet to learn how to work in the coalition and how to work by all members of the Verkhovna Rada.

At the start of our work I would say I wanted to see the Parliament a factory of high-quality laws. We have not become it yet. There is grounded criticism against the Government regarding quality and time of draft laws, but we have to ask ourselves too, because this is our common work.

Work at urgent laws in the committees is often protracted to the last moment. There is a lot of legislative "spam". We have nearly 2,000 draft laws registered, but far not all of them are worth efforts and time of the Staff of the Verkhovna Rada and deputies. I instructed committees to hold draft laws that are not recommended for consideration of the Verkhovna Rada, but this work has not been done yet. We have yet to define priorities of our work. As a result we are often "being led", when we should lead somebody instead.

The cooperation of the Parliament and the Government has to be improved on the ground of shared priorities. I think we have all reasons in place today and complete understanding with the Cabinet of Ministers to change this work for the better.

We adopt a lot of good laws, but very often Ukraine's problem does not lie in absence of laws, but it lies in observation of laws. The Parliament has supervisory functions too, but I have to state we are not following properly the implementation of our resolutions. We have to consolidate our authority to check the executives, and I think one of the priorities in the next year of our work should be proper parliamentary control.

One more thing. In fact we do not work enough in communicating with the society. We are always criticizing the Parliament and our colleagues. This is right when there are reasons for this, but we take little care about explaining the role of the Parliament and the core of the reforms. We must also tell about difficulties in the implementation of the reforms. Populism often prevails, and there is lack of open direct communication with the society.

Are these drawbacks in the work crucial? I want to reiterate: regardless of objective obstacles on the way of adoption of important decisions and our own faults that we need to tackle, this Parliament provides a result and still has potential to adopt required State decisions. If we are responsible regarding our mission and tasks, if we define clearly our priorities and continue to refine ourselves, if we always put the interests of the State on the first place and put aside our political ambitions for a while, we can make this country successful. We can make the Ukrainian nation sustainable. We are those who can make the dreams of people true.

I often hear that the Ukrainian people have won the right to decent life during the Revolution of Dignity. Yes, this is true. But they won the right, and we must consolidate and realize this right now. One revolution, another revolution, and the following Revolution of Dignity which has taken lives of people. This is a clear signal for you and me that we are politically and historically responsible for the success of Ukraine.

Priorities for 2016 is an important task facing us.

I think all of you agree that without proper development of the economy we will never build any social standards. We won't be able to resolve questions worrying each citizen and each of people's deputies representing various regions, cities, districts. We have a lot of problems, but we have to resolve them together.

Only revival of the economy will return prospects to people.

We got a robbed country after the revolution. Few remember this today, but I want to remind that there was a mere of UAH 108,000 on the account of the State Treasury in March 2014. Nothing was paid, everything was in horrible situation and we were expecting a large armed invasion of the Russian Federation. Those were hard times, but they are in the past now. And I think here we must be unbiased in assessing what was done over the year.

We have survived a hard blow of the annexation of the Crimea, the Russia aggression in the east of the country, but I do not consider the war an obstacle for renewal of the economic growth. There are countries that showed successful development in the environment of permanent conflict.

Regrettably, the Ukrainian people have not been provided with a concept of the economic development of the country. In my opinion there are no excuses for further living in the conditions of uncertainty and economic chaos. We must jointly with the Government - I emphasize jointly with the Government - immediately provide a short-term and mod-term economic strategy.

It is clear in principle which steps it should contain: deregulation, deoligarchisation and facilitation of small and medium businesses, support of perspective clusters and exporters, improvement of efficiency of state asset management, creation of favorable environment for investors. By the way, we have begun to adopt some decisions and this is good.

In the near future we have to decide matters of the tax reform, as a simple and understandable tax system is vital for any economy. We need to achieve in 2016 a little economic growth. The following two points are required preconditions for provision of the economic growth, further formation of an effective management system.

Last week together with some people's deputies I was on a visit in Sweden and Finland. Two small European countries without huge resources have extremely successful economies. What is the secret? Their advantage is an effective management system. We have no future without an effective management system. I have always been convinced of this and my previous experiences consolidated my opinion.

The lion's share of my efforts as a Vice Prime Minister and the Verkhovna Rada Chairperson have been aiming formation of an effective system of government in the country. It is big regret that yesterday we did not consider it. I am sure that the reform of civil service is one of key reforms. It is impossible to build the European future of our country with dilettantes. The reform of the Parliament, introduction of elements of e-government, and, as a consequence, of e-Parliament, amendments to the Constitution, elaboration of new election legislation represent elements of a single mosaic, integral parts of forming of an effective form of state management.

This process is not easy and it requires time. But I think we must achieve a breakthrough in this direction next year. People must finally see the government become effective and guided by interests of Ukraine and its citizens, rather than by own interests and interests of a narrow circle of persons.

Fight against corruption and the rule of law. We spoke about justice as being one of basic values. It is obvious that the feeling of injustice dominates in the society. This feeling pushes people to mob law, and this is an incorrect path. We need to establish the true supremacy of law in the country.

When we tell about adoption of this or that anti-corruption law, the people say: "and what? What has changed?" To date a big part of laws we have adopted has not begun to work. But there is good news for all: they will take effect in 2016. I think everybody will feel how good is the anti-corruption legislation.

In my belief we have two priorities, two priority-driven tasks in this field. Firstly, it is completion of formation of the legislative basis for creation in Ukraine of truly effective and independent law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, especially of the judiciary, through adoption of respective amendments to the Constitution.

Secondly, it is application of all powers of the Verkhovna Rada to enhance control over the implementation of the new legislation.

These things will provide the State with additional capacities for the execution of the social contract. It is hard, but the State has no right to put all burdens on shoulders of common citizens. But we cannot spend more than we have. Therefore, we need to look for reserves, economic growth, overcoming corruption, improvement of the efficiency of the management. This represents reserves of the state budget. I am sure that effective policies can allow finding hidden reserves to be used for increasing social standards.

At the same time we have to begin formation of the healthcare sector, reform of education - two most sensitive sectors. I think an improper healthcare and education systems pose a threat to the future of the nation and obstacles on the way to success of our country.

All these priorities are tightly linked with the values of the European future, justice and dignity. These very priorities have to be a criterion for assessment of each decision made. The closest test we have to pass is the budget for 2016. We should see it not as just a sum of figures, but we should assess it from the point of meeting the strategic priorities. I want to emphasize we expect the Government to submit the budget as soon as possible. However, it is important for the Prime Minister and the Government to work with people's deputies to achieve a consolidated position before submitting it. I want it very much to see the document to be submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament as a common vision of the budget and the tax system of 2016.

Dear colleagues, in the end I would like to say it was a really hard year. I think all of you have something to tell about what was done. Did we make mistakes? It is obvious we did. Do we have more experience than a year ago? Yes. Do we have capacities today to be more consolidated, stronger, and to forget our political ambitions? I think so. Does the society expect this from us? Yes. All these questions get positive answers because we are fully responsible as the legislative branch of the government for what Ukraine will be like today and tomorrow.

I have a deep belief we will manage to unite for the sake of Ukraine and Ukrainian people regardless of political colors of factions."

FTP address:

ftp://217.20.163.135

log: visitor

pass: visitor