Oleksandr Korniienko: We are heard and understood in the Council of Europe, providing maximum expert support

Prece Service
Published on 09 November 2022, at 17:04

The First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine held a media briefing on the results of two days of the High-Level Multilateral Dialogue “Good Democratic Governance in Ukraine: Achievements, challenges and the way forward in the post-war period” in Strasbourg, France.

First of all, the First Vice-Speaker expressed gratitude on behalf of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine “for the opportunity to spend three productive days”: in high-level dialogues, in the framework of the World Forum for Democracy “Democracy: New Hope?”, organized by the Council of Europe, and during working meetings with the leadership of the Council of Europe.

“Now Ukraine is in a war that it did not declare and did not provoke – the whole civilized world knows who is the aggressor and who is defending itself,” Oleksandr Kornienko noted, adding that it is especially important for Ukraine that its partners in Europe understand that we are defending not only our land, not only our lives and future, but also democracy and a quality and free future of the common European home. At the same time, he emphasized: “We are heard and understood in the Council of Europe, providing maximum expert support to address issues related to governance”.

In addition, the First Vice-Speaker said that the representatives of the Council of Europe once again stressed that they are ready to help Ukraine to seek all approaches to solving urgent issues: not only the application of certain practices and approaches that already exist, but also good governance, electoral approaches and the perfect implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oleksandr Korniienko thanked the Ukrainian delegation for fruitful teamwork: “We represented the majority of parliamentary factions and groups, two specialized committees: on state building and local self-government and on human rights and de-occupation of our territories. We also had a high-quality team from the Ministry of Communities and Territories Development of Ukraine and the Central Election Commission”.

“Such a diverse power team was strengthened in the spirit of the fifth article of the Charter of Local Self-Government by the four largest associations of local self-government bodies representing our Ukraine. It is very important not only to say that we are in contact with self-government, but also to actually be in this contact,” said the First Vice-Speaker.

Finally, the First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine said that the Parliament closely cooperates with local self-government: “Challenges related to the war and its consequences require only joint work and unity”.

For reference. The Ukrainian delegation during the working visit to Strasbourg also included MPs of Ukraine, members of the Parliamentary Committee on Organization of State Power, Local Self-Government, Regional Development and Urban Planning - Andriy Klochko, Vitaliy Bezgin, Alina Zagoruyko, Larysa Bilozir, Vyacheslav Rublev; Committee on Foreign Policy and Interparliamentary Cooperation - Maria Ionova; Committee on Human Rights, Deoccupation and Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk, Luhansk Regions and the Autonomous of Sevastopol, national minorities and interethnic relations - Maksym Tkachenko and Taras Tarasenko.