KYIV – The Verkhovna Rada voted on July 16 to approve constitutional amendments submitted by the president, including an amendment creating what is now called “specific procedures” for local self-governance on the territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts occupied by Russian-backed terrorists.
Although legislation creating specific procedures had been twice earlier approved by Parliament (these were previously referred to as “special status”), an amendment is also needed to the Constitution of Ukraine, consisting of a single sentence that refers to the corresponding legislation, said Oleksandr Palii, a Kyiv political expert and author.
In his remarks endorsing the amendment on specific procedures, President Petro Poroshenko assured Parliament that it wouldn’t lead to federalization, or creating an autonomous entity within Ukraine like Crimea. Though insisting he was not being pressured, the president confirmed that the legal mechanism to establish the specific procedures was being demanded by the European Union and the United States.
“We simply don’t have the right to create with our own hands a situation that will leave Ukraine on its own against its aggressor,” he said. “That’s why now and in the future, when we will vote to approve the Constitution as a whole, we need to approach this vote with exceptional responsibility.”
The Minsk II accords, signed in February, required that the special status (as it was referred to then) be created by the year’s end. The approval of the specific procedures, which was part of a package of constitutional amendments, earned 288 votes in support from five parliamentary factions, including the Russian-oriented Opposition Bloc.
The basic conditions of the special status – as it was called when approved by the Verkhovna Rada in September 2014 and March of this year – are: holding local elections, amnesty for those involved in the events in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, and allowing them to form the local law enforcement structures, among other conditions. These conditions are opposed by Ukraine’s nationalists and paramilitaries, as well as some forces in Parliament.
In pushing for the amendments, the EU and U.S. leadership wanted to have the possibility of establishing the specific procedures available at their disposal in the event that the Russian leadership decides to wind down the war in the Donbas, Mr. Palii said.
“The West wants reconciliation and is hoping the Russians finally understand that they’ve entered into a dead end and the specific procedures will give them a chance to back out,” he said.
The West also wants to prove to the global community that it’s entirely fulfilling its end of the Minsk accords before economic sanctions are possibly escalated, said experts such as Mr. Palii and Vitaly Portnikov, a radio and television talk show host.
They pointed out that Western leaders are well aware that the attempts to create the specific procedures could fall apart.
For instance, a prerequisite is that local elections are held involving all Ukrainian parties and mass media, and both former and current residents of the Donbas – a proposal that’s unlikely to draw support among the self-declared leadership of the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics.
“The West isn’t interested in imposing specific procedures governing the Donbas, but in demonstrating that it fulfilled its end of the requirements, while Russia didn’t,” Mr. Portnikov wrote in a column for liga.net published on July 16. “That should become the basis for prolonging sanctions against the Putin regime, as well as new restrictive measures.”
The establishment of a special status was only the 11th clause in the Minsk accords and was predicated on the fulfillment of the prior clauses, numerous political observers pointed out.
Yet the West decided to adopt the policy – at least a month before the vote – that the Ukrainian government should fulfill its end of the accords without regard to whether Moscow was doing its part.
European Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn revealed this policy during his June 18 visit to Kyiv, in which he suggested to Mr. Poroshenko and Ukrainian leaders that they “should fulfill ‘the latter’ points of the Minsk agreements, not waiting for Russia and its fighters to fulfill their end,” as reported by the Yevropeyska Pravda news site.
That fact prompted critics of the president to accuse him of pursuing the specific procedures even though the Russian government – which has armed and financed the terrorists in Ukraine’s east – is not fulfilling even the most basic requirements of the Minsk accords.
“We haven’t observed any equivalent step in return from Russia, even after the epochal dragging through Parliament of the constitutional amendments, a betrayal and anti-Ukrainian in their essence,” said Dmytro Yarosh, the head of Pravyi Sektor, Ukraine’s leading paramilitary organization, which has a running conflict with the president. “Instead, conversely, the appetites of the invaders are growing and they’re constantly talking about that,” Mr. Yarosh said.
The president assured the public otherwise in an address issued on July 19, following the amendments’ approval. All the key points of the Minsk II accords must be fulfilled before any establishment of specific procedures on the occupied territories of Donbas, he stressed.
“This law can only take effect after the fulfillment of an entire series of preconditions,” Mr. Poroshenko said. “These conditions include disarming the fighters, removing Russian soldiers, renewing control along the entire line of the Ukrainian-Russian border, and holding honest, free and democratic local elections. Isn’t this what we’re striving for?”
Mr. Poroshenko was addressing harsh criticism from Mr. Yarosh, a national deputy, and populist politicians like Oleh Liashko, the head of the Radical Party faction. The former alleged that the U.S. government caved in to pressure mounted by the Russian government in June to approve the Donbas specific procedures.
In essence, however, the amendment on the specific procedures is not much different from the prior two bills (of September and March) creating a special status for the Donbas, said Mr. Palii.
The term “special status” was deliberately changed to “specific procedures,” and likely at the initiative of Mr. Poroshenko, added Mr. Palii, a Kyiv political insider. “It’s a semantic difference specially aimed at reducing the status,” he said. “Procedures is less obligatory. It’s no longer something special.”
At the same time, he admitted to The Weekly that few outside of Parliament have seen the actual text of the conditions of the specific procedures, which could have changed somewhat.
Without the exact text available, politicians such as Messrs. Liashko and Yarosh played on the public’s fears and criticized the president for putting the interests of the West ahead of the interests of the Ukrainian people.
They pointed to the presence in the Verkhovna Rada’s visitor loge of Victoria Nuland, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who spent the prior evening – and even a break during the session – consulting with national deputies in securing the vote.
Also, on the eve of the July 16 vote, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande both placed phone calls to not only Mr. Poroshenko but also Parliamentary Chair Volodymyr Groysman, “which says a lot,” reported Mr. Portnikov. [For a story on the pressure applied by Berlin and Paris, see page 2.]
Accompanied by EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, Ms. Nuland likely found amusement in yet another raucous session in Parliament.
Mr. Liashko took to the tribune to invoke Winston Churchill’s now famous words that in choosing shame instead of war when appeasing Adolf Hitler, Great Britain would be getting both shame and war.
“We’re being told that if we don’t approve these changes to the Constitution, then Europe, America and the world will turn away from us,” Mr. Liashko said. “I want to remind you, Mr. President, the words of Oleksander Oles written in 1943: ‘When Ukraine, in an uneven struggle, was soaked in blood, crying tears and waiting for friendly help, Europe remained silent, Europe remained silent.’ ”
Upon concluding, he led the Parliament in a melodramatic rendition of the national anthem, as his fellow national deputies stood and joined in singing.
“The politicians needed something to gain publicity from, especially ahead of the October 25 local elections. They were speculating on what’s otherwise standard legislation to show what great patriots they are,” Mr. Palii said.
Responding to criticism just before the vote, Mr. Poroshenko accused his opponents of playing into the hands of the Kremlin. “Those who want to accuse the EU, the U.S. for staying silent, that they didn’t do anything, that they betrayed us – that’s what the aggressor needs now: to divide the global unity that rallied around Ukraine. And the Ukrainian Parliament will never allow you to do that, I’m sure,” he said.
“If you were to activate your imagination now and paint a picture of what the situation would be like if Europe and the U.S. truly remained silent this year – you’d have to look at where Russian armies would be now and where would Ukraine be. It would be hard to imagine a more irresponsible position in this hall,” he emphasized.
Not to be outdone, the president launched into his own rendition of the anthem, which made the session all the more entertaining.
The voting was capped off by a brawl initiated by National Deputy and Euro-Maidan hero Volodymyr Parasiuk, who was offended that National Deputy Roman Nasirov had failed to surrender his mandate – in violation of the law – after being appointed as head of the State Fiscal Service.
The constitutional amendments will now be forwarded to the Constitutional Court for review, which should be completed by the summer’s end, observers said. Afterwards, they will require two more votes in the Rada for approval, the first by a simple majority of 226 votes and the second by a constitutional majority of 300 votes.
Mr. Poroshenko said he’d make “every effort” to ensure these votes occur in the fall.
The approved amendment will refer to the law on the specific procedures for certain territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which will also need to be approved again, as stipulated by the Minsk II accords, based on a dialogue with the Russian-backed terrorists, said Mr. Palii. [The previous version of the special status had been approved in March.]
The scandal surrounding the Donbas specific procedures drew attention away from the constitutional amendments that were approved in the same vote, including those aimed at decentralizing political and fiscal authority in Ukraine.
Currently, the Presidential Administration is represented in each oblast and district in Ukraine, known as state oblast administrations and district state administrations. Their heads are appointed by the president, and their function is to ensure that executive orders are being fulfilled regionally. Yet previous presidents abused the state oblast and district administration system for corruption, particularly vote fraud.
Executive committees will now take the place of oblast state administrations, whose leadership will be elected by oblast councils. But the president will retain the ability to influence these executive committees with his power to appoint prefects, who are charged with overseeing the executive committees and ensuring they don’t violate the Constitution, such as pursuing separatist activity.
The Self-Reliance party opposed the constitutional amendments on the grounds that the newly created prefects are gaining powers “that are intrinsic to prosecutors, not representatives of the executive government,” said Oleh Bereziuk, the head of the Self-Reliance faction. “Such prefects will become usurpers and will make the entire local government dependent on then.”
Self-Reliance also opposed the Donbas specific procedures because “it sets the foundation for the creeping federalization that Russia wants,” Mr. Bereziuk said.