During the meeting, a range of priority matters of inter-parliamentary cooperation between Ukraine and the State of Israel were discussed. In particular, the necessity of accelerating negotiations on signing a bilateral agreement on free trade zone between Ukraine and the State of Israel and separate financial protocol for the protection of investments (under the intergovernmental agreement on trade and economic cooperation) was discussed.
Eduard Gurvits also informed the Speaker of the Knesset about the preparations for the ratification of the Agreement between Ukraine and the State of Israel on social security and the steps taken by the union to accelerate consideration of this issue. “I completely agree with you, Mr. Yuli, it is not an issue of big policy, but it is a very thorny issue of social justice. Today, a big group of pensioners, who worked all their lives in the USSR and in independent Ukraine, lives in Israel. Among them, there are many war veterans, and Ukraine has no grounds to deprive them from their honestly earned pensions. The same way, citizens, who received pension in Israel, and for any reasons moved back to Ukraine, should earn pension here ,” E. Gurvits stated.
The Parties agreed with the necessity to intensify cooperation between the Verkhovna Rada and the Knesset, and therefore E.Gurvits promised to present this proposal to the Ukrainian parliament.
Additional information: the Inter-faction deputy union was created in May 2013. The Chairman of the union – the people’s deputy of Ukraine Eduard Gurovits (faction of the Political Party «UDAR (Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform) of Vitaliy Klychko»), the Deputy Chairman – Viktor Bondar (faction of the PARTY OF REGIONS in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the seventh convocation). 19 people’s deputies – representatives of deputies’ factions and non-affiliated deputies - entered the union.