News
The majority failed to come to an agreement with the opposition.The Rada is still blocked.
Parliamentarians failed to come to an agreement: the opposition continues to block speaker's rostrum, the Party of Regions is talking about the early termination of the Verkhovna Rada.
Leaders of factions didn't manage to come to an understanding during the joint meeting. This information was provided by the Party of Regions faction leader Oleksandr Yefremov. He informed that the proposition of the VRU Head Volodymyr Rybak concerning approval of the memorandum on issues raised by the opposition wasn't supported. Besides that, the Parliamentary agenda for the next week and the statement on the European integration weren't prepared, and the issue of membership changes in committees wasn't settled.
According to Mr. Yefremov, the majority proposed faction leaders to take responsibility for voting in the Parliament. MPs should agree on the voting system in the session hall – would it be a separate day, or the afternoon. "Every MP will personally push buttons", – emphasized the Party of Regions leader. Before the voting, the speaker will announce names of absent MPs in order to withdraw their voting cards. If an MP doesn't vote "for", "against" or "abstained", i.e. doesn't participate in Parliamentary activities, he will not be charged fees.
Answering the question of journalists, whether the Regions is going to use force to unblock the Parliament, Mr. Yefremov said: "Our faction is constantly learning. We will not make the same mistakes and make the whole world laugh at us."
Mr. Yefremov had also mentioned that, according to the legislation, if the Verkhovna Rada doesn't start its activities in 30-day period, the President has the right to dissolve the Parliament. He had also said that the President will decide himself whether to use this right.
We remind that the First Deputy Head of the Party of Regions faction Mykhailo Chechetov had recently stated, that the Party of Regions will unblock the Parliament and quickly amend the Law on elections in order to conduct re-election through the majoritarian system.
Opposition representatives, Arsenii Yatseniuk (All-Ukrainian Union Fatherland), Vitalii Klychko (UDAR), and Ruslan Koshulytskyi (All-Ukrainian Union Svoboda) stated on the briefing that they are not going to compromise with the Regions and will continue blocking the parliament until the touch button will be put into operation. "We don't trust our opponents. The touch button will guarantee personal voting", – emphasized Mr. Koshulynskyi.
The opposition has been blocking the VRU since February 5.
