22 October 2015, 10:44
On October 19, the National Reforms Council held its 13th meeting headed by the President of Ukraine. The meeting was dedicated to the visa-free regime with the European Union and the implementation of the Association Agreement.
On behalf of the Committee, Iryna Heraschenko expressed the vision of problems in the process of European integration, in particular the adaptation of the Ukrainian legislation, the role of the Committee in the European integration and the role of the Ukrainian Parliament in the process of implementation of the Association Agreement.
The chairperson of the committee noted that Ukraine does not yet have own single body responsible for official translation of the Acts of the European Union required for comprehensive examination of the legislation and the draft regulatory legal acts as to their correspondence to the European Union law as well as to obligations of Ukraine in the frames of the Association Agreement. Thus, today Ukraine has to establish such a body under the Ministry of Justice as it had been earlier, or under the governmental office for European integration, which currently acts at the cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, or under the aegis of the vice prime minister for European integration.
Iryna Heraschenko Also noted that the Ukrainian Parliament had faced a number of challenges. In particular, she drew attention to the increasing number of cases when certain initiatives clearly lobbying someone's interest were presented in disguise of draft laws aimed at bringing the Ukrainian legislation in line with the EU standards. In order to raise the quality of the draft laws consider by the Ukrainian Parliament, in order to improve the process of consideration of draft laws, and to provide proper implementation of Ukrainian Parliament's tasks to achieve the goals of the Association Agreement in the field of bringing Ukrainian legislation in line with the European one, respective changes should be done in activity of the Ukrainian parliament, in particular through the enhancement of the role of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration and the role of the scientific-expert department under the Ukrainian Parliament.
As early reported, on November 9 — the date when the European Commission completes analyzing information about the implementation of the Plan for the liberalization of the visa regime by the EU for Ukraine — the Ukrainian Parliament will have to adapt and pass 12 draft laws submitted by the Ukrainian government in order to meet it.
The above-mentioned draft laws are part of the package of 70 draw laws the Ukrainian government has two adopt until the end of its current session. The package of the top-priority draft laws and has been formed to implement the plan of legislative support to reforms initiated by Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Volodymyr Groysman.