Mykola Tomenko: The Party of Regions launched a Presidential Election Campaign and will block the Work of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on a Daily Basis
"The Verkhovna Rada scrutinized three Bills, two of which were adopted in entirety, and one was rejected", - stated Mykola Tomenko, Vice-Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, after the extraordinary sitting of the Parliament was closed.
M.Tomenko believes that 12 out of 24 Bills would have been adopted in entirety or at the First Reading, if there had been a possibility to scrutinize all the issues of the agenda. M.Tomenko supposes it would have become a substantial support of the local self-government. "When the members of the Party of Regions understood that the Parliament could adopt other Bills on the support of the local self-government, they blocked the work", - he stated.
The Vice-Chairman of The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine stated that "it is hard to predict an optimistic development of events, as the sitting of the Conciliative Council brought us back to the previous discussion, because the stand of the Party of Regions was unchangeable: either the Bill on Amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On the State Budget of Ukraine for 2009" (re the Rates of Minimum Living Wage and Minimum Wage) is scrutinized and adopted in entirety, or the work is blocked".
However, the pro-governmental BYuT Faction expressed its willingness to work in the working group and look for the compromise decision. M.Tomenko admits that "one can not expect yet that The Verkhovna Rada will launch its work on Tuesday and will scrutinize the Bills".
M.Tomenko deems reasonable to study all the suggestions concerning further work, taking into account that the Party of Regions has actually launched a presidential election campaign and will block the work of The Verkhovna Rada on a daily basis.
"We have a few alternatives. Either The Verkhovna Rada works and scrutinizes all the Bills, including the Bill on Social Standards, and we restore the work, or the Party of Regions collects the signatures of at least 150 People´s Deputies and the Parliament is dissolved", - stated the Vice-Chairman.
M.Tomenko also suggests that the initiators of the blocking reimburse the funds spent by The Verkhovna Rada for the non-working parliament.