UKRAINIAN NATIONAL PLATFORM Comments on the Joint Report by the European Commission and EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy on Implementation of the European Neighborhood Policy in Ukraine in 2010 The Ukrainian National Platform of the Civil Society Forum (hereinafter – UNP) welcomes publication of the Report on ENP implementation in Ukraine in 2010. In our opinion, this year's report is more detailed than the previous one and rather critical in its assessments, which we also consider a positive aspect. However, UNP appeals to the European Commission and Commissioner Stefan Fule with the request to pay attention to some additional aspects of the European Neighborhood Policy implementation in Ukraine in 2010 and of the published report on their performance. First, in 2010, the Ukrainian government demonstrated lack of political will to implement real reforms and comply with European standards, as well as lack of transparency in decision-making on issues important for the country. This is what, according to UNP, was the key problem and the reason for the negative trends in Ukraine. While the Report notes a number of problems regarding implementation of the ENP in Ukraine in 2010, it does not hold Ukrainian authorities responsible for these problems, especially due to their reluctance to implement real transformations and consider the public opinion, which undermines the impact of this report. Thus, the recent year was the period of consolidation of all branches of power in the hands of one political force, which offers a unique chance to implement systemic reforms in the country. However, Ukrainian authorities have demonstrated that they have no vision of internal changes, nor do they maintain an efficient dialogue with civil society organizations and socio-economic partners, who would be able to support them. Despite the intensity of the process of negotiations between Ukraine and EU in recent years or the magnitude of obligations undertaken, the Ukrainian Government has not formed a clear vision of reforms needed, it has not convinced the population that they are needed, has not created the respective structures and training and information systems for their implementation. The Ukrainian National Platform considers that in 2010 the government continued its practice of developing and implementing reforms without extensive consultation with key stakeholders, explaining the nature and content of planned changes to develop support of the reforms by the country's population, which is violation of generally recognized European standards, as well as of a number of legislative acts of Ukraine. 1
The Tax Code enforced in this way caused mass protests by entrepreneurs of the country. Instead of expanding consultation with socio-economic partners, in violation of agreements reached with entrepreneurs, the Government initiated criminal proceedings against organizers of the protest. UNP emphasizes that as a result of the new regulation on public councils and the process of optimizing the system of central executive bodies proclaimed by the President, in most cases contribution of Public Councils at CEBs and local authorities was brought to nothing. Second, some facts, which are partly reflected in the Report, have not received an adequate critical assessment. Thus, the Report only presents facts regarding the content of certain acts (e.g. legislative ones), while ignoring ambiguity of certain innovations and the actual status of the reforms’ implementation. For example, the report mentions the reform of tax legislation and specific provisions of the new Tax Code. However, the Report contains no assessment of the possible negative impact of the innovations, which will substantially complicate conditions for development of small and medium businesses and, eventually, the middle class, which remains weak in Ukraine. Moreover, the Report does not indicate ambiguity of these changes’ perception by the society or alternative evaluations of the new tax legislation that were expressed in protests of entrepreneurs. Another example relates to the Public Procurement Law adopted in 2010. Although the Law did meet certain requirements of the EU, it left great opportunities for abuse in the process of public procurement. Thus, in 2010 the practice of withdrawal of certain sectors from under requirements of this legislation was started, which created unlimited corruption opportunities. In 2011, the EU reacted to these negative processes and suspended issue of another tranche under budget support programs within the ENPI framework. However, the Report does not offer an adequate critical evaluation of implementation of tender regulations. The same can be said about assessment of the policy of Ukraine on climate change and environment, which is not critical enough. Coverage of implementation or non-performance of certain activities is selective, no assessment of the overall progress in environmental priorities’ implementation is offered, the prospect of specific issues’ / initiatives’ development is not taken into account. The section of the Report focused on issues of the educational policy creates a significantly overestimated positive impression about the sector’s development in 2010. The report does not take into account a number of important facts that indicate the regressive nature of educational measures of the Ministry of Education, including bringing to nothing achievements in the Bologna process and integration of Ukraine into the European educational space. Some provisions of the Report in the sphere of educational are not true to facts. Third, integration of Ukraine into the EU requires appropriate institutional support. In this regard, UNP is concerned about abolition of the position of the Vice Prime Minister for European and International Integration and elimination of the Coordinating Bureau for European and EuroAtlantic Integration under the umbrella of the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, as well as the significant cuts in staff of its successor – the Department of European Integration within the Secretariat of the Cabinet. Moreover, surprising is elimination of the Public Department for Adaptation of Legislation at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Creation of the Department for European Integration consisting of two persons at the Presidential Administration does not 2
contribute into strengthening of Ukraine's ability to effectively coordinate the policy of European integration. Thus, to date, European integration of Ukraine is left without proper institutional support. UNP expects the next Report on ENP implementation to pay due attention to institutional support for the European integration policy of Ukraine, particularly in the context of signing the Association Agreement. Developing a clear and understandable model of European integration coordination and implementation of the Association Agreement should provide for mechanisms for analyzing obligations, planning, as well as monitoring and evaluation. Finally, UNP emphasizes that the Report as a lever of the EU’s influence on Ukraine requires strengthening in view of submitting and communicating the report to Ukrainian authorities and Ukrainian society. When presenting the report, it is necessary to emphasize several most important issues and areas that the EU expects Ukraine to improve the situation in during the next year. In other words, these should be several key messages, which could be picked up by the media and conveyed to the Ukrainian society. Moreover, embassies of Member States in their work with representatives of Ukrainian authorities would have to retransmit these messages to reinforce their impact. We would also wish to welcome the fact that the European Commission provides opportunities for the public to submit information to annual reports on ENP implementation in Ukraine. However, it is necessary to improve the procedure of consideration of public comments and suggestions, for example, by organizing an intermediate meeting of European Commission representatives and those of the NGOs and NGO associations that have submitted their comments to the reports. POLITICAL DIALOGUE AND REFORMS Democracy and Rule of Law The Report reflects some aspects of the situation regarding democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights, but it does not include a number of very important points. In the field of the constitutional reform, the report does not take into consideration the fact that the amendments to the Constitution, which significantly expanded authority of the President, were approved with very questionable legitimacy, via a ruling of the Constitutional Court, which has no respective authority. The Constitutional Assembly was created in the post-reporting period, in January 2011, not as a fundamental mechanism for the constitutional reform but as an advisory structure at the Presidential Administration, decisions of which are only recommendatory in nature. The Report critically enough describes the conditions of passing the constitutional reform, however, it refrains from own political assessments referring to the assessment by the Venice Commission. The Report states that "only limited progress has been made in strengthening local selfgovernment". However, the report completely ignores the practice of the elections of local governments, which most observers considered the dirtiest in recent years. The elections demonstrated use of administrative resources, questionable court judgments regarding withdrawal 3
of candidates, the problem of buying votes and absence of investigations for such cases. A positive aspect of the report is the repeated emphasis on the need for adoption of the unified Election Code. Evaluation in the Report of the limited progress in strengthening local governments raises objections. On the contrary, we should speak about deteriorating of the situation with ensuring local self-government in Ukraine. This, particularly, is demonstrated by the approved amendments to the Budget Code, which greatly limit financial independence of local governments and increases unjustified state control in these matters. This, in turn, deprives local governments of the economic foundation of their own independence. Amendments in the Law of Ukraine "On City-Hero Kyiv" regarding delimitation of the positions of the mayor and the head of the local state administration, which are mentioned in the Report as positive ones, in fact, led to limitation of rights of Kyiv residents to local self-government, as well as enhanced the presidential power vertical. The report does not capture the important aspect that the government has returned to an extremely non-transparent decision-making process, rejecting any public suggestions. This reforms implementation practice has led to significant social unrest, including protests against the tax reform. The report pays no attention to the fact that fighting corruption was often no more that a way to fight political rivals, as the majority of cases were initiated against political opponents of the team in power. In this sphere, in 2010 several steps backwards were actually made. Despite adoption of a quite progressive package of laws in the fight against corruption sphere, passed back in 2009, in 2010 its enactments was planned and postponed twice (April, 1st 2010 and January, 1st 2011). Although this event goes beyond the reporting period, it should be noted that in early January 2011 the package of anti-corruption laws was revoked by the President of Ukraine in connection with submission for consideration of the President's draft law. Thus, as on January 4, 2011 there is not a single acting act of legislation in the fight against corruption sphere in Ukraine. Besides, it should be emphasized that the law "On Prevention and Fighting Corruption", which was to replace the Law "On Fighting Corruption", if enacted, would conflict with the applicable Law "On Civil Service". In the field of the public administration reform, the report mentions reducing the number of ministries and executive bodies and, consequently, their staff, but this was not accompanied by simultaneous measures to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the state apparatus’ operation. In the opinion of UNP, the reform of public administration was launched without a clear vision of tasks of new authorities or extensive consultations with civil society organizations. Actually no reforming of the public administration system is taking place. Evidence of this is the following facts: ¡ The Program of Economic Reforms declared by the President of Ukraine for the period of 2010-2014 "Wealthy Society, Competitive Economy, Effective State" envisaged development before autumn 2010 of the public administration modernization program, but this comprehensive document has never been analyzed or approved either by the government or by the President. This document was not processed in the process of reforming central executive authorities either. 4
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The Decree of the President of Ukraine "On Optimization of the System of Central Executive Authorities", adopted in December 2010, reflected the decision to reorganize authorities and single out four key types of bodies – ministries, public services, government agencies and state inspections, thus reducing the number of authorities and civil servants. In fact, the motto of the reform was reduction of bureaucracy. The number of ministries decreased from 19 to 16 (so, one can hardly speak about radical restructuring so far), reduction of the number of employees took place based on the principle of 30%, being the objective declared in the Decree, not on the principle of eliminating duplication of functions among existing departments (in fact, this resulted in laying off all retirement-age public officials and disloyal civil servants). Second, renaming of authorities from committees as agencies or inspections took place 4 months before adoption of the Law "On Central Executive Authorities" (adopted in March 2011), which legally defined the list of functions assigned to each of the four types of bodies. This approach to reforming is far from being an evidence of enhancing efficiency of the system’s operation, rather of paralysis of the system due to massive unprepared layoffs and inability of the reorganized authorities to function properly (the last provision on the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade was only approved on May 31, 2011) The optimization process takes place without understanding needs and the regulation scope for economy sectors, or getting rid of duplicated functions of current CEBs. Changes in the sector have had virtually no impact on reducing the level of bureaucratic control. Moreover, so far the budgetary process is not sufficiently linked with the system of strategic planning in Ukraine. The principle of transparency is not fully complied with in activity of public authorities. Internet resources of state agencies offer little information on results of government programs’ implementation and budgetary funds spent on it. Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms UNP shares the opinion of the European Commission on deterioration of the respect for human rights situation. In 2010, the practice of imposing court bans on protest actions by opposition forces became widespread, which is a direct restriction on the freedom of assembly. At the same time, they allowed actions to support the government in power. The Report does not fully cover implementation of the equal treatment policy. Creation of the InterDepartmental Commission for consideration of complaints does not change the fact of the actual absence of women at leadership positions in all branches of today's ruling coalition. In March 2010, the Office for Human Rights Monitoring in Activity of the Ministry of the Interior was disbanded, and its regional staff fired. The Office organized activity of mobile groups to monitor respect for human rights in prisons subordinated to the Ministry of Interior, which influenced improvement of living conditions at temporary detention prisons. The Report in a limited way mentions the registered actions of authorities to persecute opposition representatives and civic activists, including participants of the protest against the Tax Code. In fact, as a result of intentional actions of the government, several people have been staying at temporary detention prisons for over 6 months for accusations of administrative offences, namely 5
damaging paving slabs in the Independence Square, since witnesses to the offense, the police, do not come for the court hearings. In 2010, the draft law on the court fee was adopted in the first reading, which stipulates that all court services will be paid for. In the absence of public legal assistance for the socially disadvantaged, adoption of such law would result in that a significant portion of citizens of Ukraine will not have the chance to appeal to court. On September 16, 2010 the President adopted the Decree approving the Regulation for the Free Pardon Procedure. This act, unlike its predecessor, narrowed the already very limited opportunity to benefit from the institute of free pardon. Ukraine lost Kharchenko vs Ukraine case at the European Court of Human Rights. The ruling recognized that conditions at temporary detainment prisons are such that disrespect human dignity. The commitment to change the internal detention routine at temporary detainment prisons was not fulfilled. Reforming the judiciary system and adoption of the new reading of the Law of Ukraine "On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges" were adopted without taking into account recommendations of the Venice Commission. The new status of the High Council of Justice and its present composition have actually increased dependence of judges on the executive branch and reduced their autonomy and independence in administration of justice. UNP also expresses concern regarding leniency of authorities to activities of ultra-right and ultra-left groups in the country. In the post-reporting period, during celebration of May, 9 in Lviv, at direct provoking by the staff of MIA of Ukraine, there were clashes between these groups. We believe that these groups are deliberately used by the authorities to create newsbreaks and avert public attention from more important issues. Law enforcement agencies have not initiated criminal investigation into the recorded use of firearms by a former employee of the Ministry of Interior who took part in the provocations. The report contains no mention of the issue of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. While architectural and other barriers that prevent full participation of disabled people in various spheres of public life remain a major problem, especially in small towns and rural areas. "Cooperation in Matters of Justice, Freedom and Security". The Report in this part of public policy overall reflects the majority of the key decisions and events that took place in 2010. However, characteristics of the key trends in the JFS sphere are mostly presented in the narrative form without proper analysis. Some policies in this sphere are highlighted in a fragmentary and selective way, focusing on those events in which no progress was made. In particular, regarding demarcation of borders, there is no mention of the changes (some progress) in demarcation of the Russian-Ukraine and Ukraine-Belarus borders. There is no indication of the improvements in performance by Ukraine of the readmission agreement, as described in the EU - Ukraine Visa Facilitation Action Plan. 6
There is no mention either of the outcomes of the administrative reform, including the presidential decree "On Optimization of the Central Executive Authorities System" (December, 9 2010), which resulted in establishing the State Service for Personal Data Protection and the State Migration Service, which are key institutional innovation in the JFS sphere during the said period. The report does not reflect the trends that occurred in the documents security sphere, which is one of the key JFS reform directions. The Report does not cover participation, the role and influence of NGOs in the EU-Ukraine cooperation process in these areas. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REFORMS Assessment of the economic progress of Ukraine in the Report is ambiguous and contains rather conventional than actual achievements. In the "General Assessment", changes in the economic sphere are evaluated more positively than in the political one. But among the achievements, only resuming of cooperation with the IMF (which is now discontinued), adoption of the Law "On Public Procurement" and "On Reforming the Gas Sector", as well as technical assistance to reforms by the EU are mentioned. Thus, all there assessments refer to the potential that can be realized only in the long run if key reforms are implemented. Key economic problems are formulated through internal (corruption, taxes, customs procedures) and external (legal environment, judicial system) factors. The focus of assessments in the Report primarily on regulations adopted or revised in Ukraine is, on the one hand, justified regarding the traditional toolkit of the public policy, but, on the other, it introduces a significant systematic error in the overall assessment of the report, as the government continues its large-scale and long-term practice of selective implementation of national legislation. Given this aspect, the assessment that is based only on the formal aspects of adoption by the Parliament of a certain law is only assessment of declarations and efforts, while without any assessment of the status of actual implementation of the new legislation and its proper performance evaluation is incomplete and one-sided. Details regarding achievements of Ukraine in the economic sphere are presented in three main theses that do not look such in the inner dimension: 路 foreign economic stabilization; 路 controlling inflation; 路 reducing unemployment. Instead, the sections relating to trade, market, regulatory system, transport, energy, environment, information society, research and engineering activities are presented in the rhetoric of concern, uncertainty, instability, lack of progress, little success, etc. The report does not mention the failure to formulate, explain to the public and to implement the pension reform. All activities of the Government on this issue are only taking place due to pressure from international partners. As a result of the limited timeframe (January-December 2010), the document does not fully reflect the complicated situation with the Public Procurement Law, however, the Report provides an overview of the development of situation regarding the Law in 7
2011, amendments to which have caused concern in the EU and suspension of budgetary support for Ukraine. Not taking into account in the report the actual level of the country’s GDP redistribution through the state budget, including consideration of compensating for the deficit of the Pension Fund of Ukraine budget at the expense of the State Budget of Ukraine, leads to incomplete and insufficiently objective assessment of macroeconomic indicators. Conditions for small and medium businesses deteriorated after adoption of the new Tax Code. Based on it, in particular, regulatory authorities obtained more opportunities for inspecting businesses, while the latter did not get more opportunities to protect their rights. A huge problem is corruption at supervisory authorities and their demanding bribes from businessmen. Moreover, a common practice is administrative pressure by local governments on businesses at the support of supervisory authorities to ensure their loyalty. In general, no improvement in the business climate is observed, at least for small and medium businesses independent of authorities. The Report’s thesis that "the State Register of Enterprises process is getting easier, as well as inspections of enterprises" is not quite true. We consider it appropriate to note that decisions of the Government of Ukraine on facilitation of doing business, especially for small and medium enterprises, are not applicable to the State Register of Economic Entities. Some governmental decisions to cancel the state registration certificate for business entities and to cancel the permit to producing a stamp for a business entity at the simultaneous deciding on closure of free Internet access to public data of the State Register of Economic Entities have led not to simplification but to actual complication of doing business and a significant increase of non-productive time and financial pressure on businesses, which is especially critical for small businesses. The Report neglects the issue of active governmental intrusion into the pricing process and does not assess the level of privatization transparency. It is obvious that recently in Ukraine in the framework of the reforms announced by the state we observe an offensive to fundamental economic rights of citizens, such as: the right to private property, social security, business activity, labor, strike, recreation, and more. Therefore, we consider it appropriate to include into the Report the European Commission’s position regarding the trends mentioned. ENERGY The report offers a fragmented assessment of cooperation in the energy sector between Ukraine and the EU drafted mainly on the basis of documents circulating between Kyiv and Brussels without taking into account the reality and processes in the field of energy cooperation, or trends in the Ukrainian energy sector. The new Law "On Principles of the Natural Gas Market Operation" was adopted only due to pressure from the EU, and its practical implementation is being blocked. Moreover, · Amendments made to the law make it possible to ignore the right of consumers to freely choose their suppliers of gas; · Pursuant to the law’s provisions on free access to the GTS, no Procedure of Access to the GTS of Ukraine (NERC’s responsibility) or Methodology for Determining Presence or Absence 8
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of Free Bandwidth Capacity of Ukraine's GTS (responsibility of the Ministry of Energy) have been approved; There is no regulation for creation of technological conditions for accepting gas into the Ukrainian gas transportation system on the Ukrainian-Russian border by means of building the respective GMSs; There is no definition for a clear procedure for delineating the spheres of production, transportation, distribution in accordance with the third EU gas package.
The 50% increase of the cost of gas has not improved the financial situation of NJSC "Naftogaz Ukraine" due to poor payment discipline of oblgazenergo utilities, and it did not lead to increased domestic gas production. The Energy Efficiency Program in 2010 used approximately 20% of the expected funding amounting to USD 900 million (of which over 90% are renewable energy costs, and less than 9% - rehabilitation of buildings), i.e. we observe replacement of types of energy carriers without any effective actions to reduce energy consumption. The Energy Efficiency Program adopted by Ukraine is not feasible given the lack of legislative incentives, unrealistic financial support and lack of training programs for experts in this area. The Government has not developed effective mechanisms for implementation of the Energy Efficiency Program and promoting reduction of losses in the process of production, transportation and use of thermal energy, for which more than 40% of consumed gas are used. Governmental subsidies and intergovernmental transfers, as before, stimulate excessive and extensive use of energy. The Parliament has not organized an extensive public discussion and has not adopted the Law on energy efficiency in buildings, which is a cornerstone in organizing the process of energy saving in the housing sector, and this casts doubt on implementation of the Energy Efficiency Program. The Report contains no assessment of: · Possible impact of Kharkiv agreements on energy relations between Ukraine and the EU; · Maximum deceleration of implementation of the Brussels Declaration on modernization of the gas transmission system of Ukraine against the background of intensive contacts with Russia in the gas sector; · Ignoring by the government implementation of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Ukraine under the Cabinet’s Resolution No.1098 of September, 30 2009; · Lack of substantive cooperation in the sphere of secure supply of hydrocarbons after the crisis of 2009 with the main European partner of Ukraine in the sphere of gas transit to EU – Slovakia; · Absence of any actual progress in reducing energy consumption. · Termination of gas supply (September, 2010) to Poland through the pipeline Ustiluh Hrubieszow. Besides, the Report does not analyze effectiveness of use by the Government of Ukraine of EU financial assistance for energy sector reforms. ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES The EC Report covers the environmental and climate change issues in traditional way for such type of documents. It once again indicates the main problems in the sphere of environmental policy and its implementation. However, the assessment of certain issues lacks critical thinking. In our opinion, 9
it is caused by the lack of a clear and coherent methodology for preparation of such reports. Description of implementation (or non-compliance) of certain measures is covered selectively, assessment of the overall progress of environmental priorities implementation is not presented, and the perspective of certain issues/initiatives development is not taken into account. As for the climate change issue, the public criticizes Ukraine`s position on the new agreement that in fact proposes to increase greenhouse gases emissions of Ukraine. In the Report there is no information that the Kyoto Protocol Secretariat rejected the National Cadastre of Greenhouse Gases Emissions for 2010. The document doesn`t mention in any way Ukraine`s intentions to destroy the state environmental expertiza that is one of the basic management tools in the field of environmental protection and the implementation of the prevention principle. The first Draft Law of Ukraine “On Regulating Urban Development” was made public in November 2010. The accompanying explanatory note stated that the draft didn`t require public consultations. Being adopted on February 17, 2011, this law abolished the mandatory state environmental expertiza of the construction projects. The working group of Ukrainian NGOs on environmental integration “EcoInt” paid special attention to this issue in its recommendations filed to the European Commission. But these recommendations were not taken into account. Conclusions concerning the implementation of the Aarhus and Espoo Conventions in Ukraine are overestimately positive. Ukraine didn`t comply with most of its obligations in accordance with the decisions of the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee and the Espoo Convention Implementation Committee. As a result, Ukraine expects some of the toughest decisions since the work of relevant compliance control mechanisms to be adopted at the Meetings of the Parties to the relevant conventions in June – July 2011. The document doesn’t contain any assessment of the progress in the issues of the convergence of the legislation of Ukraine with the EU legislation in the field of environmental protection and this issue is particularly of high priority due to intentions to sign the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. The report doesn`t indicate the problematic issue of access to information and documents in the environmental protection field that recently became very hot. In particular, for months there`s no access to the already adopted laws, decrees, programs, results of activities of commissions, working groups etc. The adoption of the Strategy for the National Environmental Policy of Ukraine till 2020 by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine became one of the most important events in the field of environmental protection in Ukraine in 2010 being appropriately mentioned in the Report. But, there is no progress in developing the Strategy for Sustainable Development that Ukraine committed to adopt under the framework of the previous EU – Ukraine Action Plan. EDUCATION The Report provides an overview and assessment of steps by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Ukraine aimed at changing the education system in Ukraine. The report notes positive trends, including simplification of the process of higher education diplomas recognition, adoption of a set of governmental programs to improve the quality of education, inclusion into the draft Law "On Education" of the key aspects of the Bologna process and participation of Ukraine in 10
international exchange programs. However, the report does not take into account a number of important points. In particular, it does not take into account the fact that transition of the high school to the 11-year study term after the 12-year one is a step that integrates the Ukrainian education system into the standards of Russia. Instead, most EU countries now have 12-14-year systems of secondary education. Modification of the basis for conducting external independent evaluation brought to nothing the reform that had created real opportunities for equal access to higher education and had had high levels of public support. The Report does not indicate that the draft Law "On Higher Education" makes an attempt to cancel at the legislative level opportunities for equal access to higher education – with entrance exams, high schools will get a legal opportunity to distort entrants’ ratings after the EIE. Abolition of the requirement of passing EIE to enter distance learning courses negates attempts to improve the quality of distance education. The Report does not account for the dramatic changes in the policy of openness of the Ministry of Education and Sciences, actual cancellation of previously implemented policies of state and public education administration and excluding the public from the process of discussing reforms. Publication of important regulations on the MES web site no longer takes place, there are recorded cases of distorting results of public consultation on draft regulations. The Report notes that the draft Law "On Education" creates conditions for strengthening university autonomy, which is not true. Specifically, the bill provides no possibility for emergence of interdisciplinary programs or university autonomy in drafting educational programs and plans, it does not allow universities, following European practices, to confer academic titles and degrees, does not provide for public participation or involvement of independent experts to licensing and accreditation processes (although in previous years this practice was implemented), distribution of the public order remains solely administrative, without real participation of universities or employers, no mechanisms for financial autonomy of universities are implemented. The Report does not consider that in 2010 Orders of the Ministry of Education aimed at strengthening university autonomy, which implemented European standards of student mobility and realized the right to independent formation of professional education components, which created incentives for domestic competition among teachers and universities, were withdrawn. In 2010, the Ministry of Education went back to the previous practice of unjustified simplifying the procedure and lowering the level of requirements for certification of scholars. The Report does not consider that introduction of compulsory education for children from the age of five, considering the current shortage of places in kindergartens, is not supported with adequate infrastructure. Despite adoption of the Concept Paper for the State Program of Preschool Education Development for the period through 2017, the program has not been adopted, and its draft submitted for public debates does not contain any financial calculations. The Report does not provide assessment of the language policy of the Ministry of Education in the secondary education system (the draft concept of language education, the concept of literary education), higher education and research activity (abolition of public examinations in the state language to enter postgraduate studies and for PhD candidates), which provoked a considerable negative public reaction. The practice of conducting EIE not in the official language, the attempt to 11
transfer the higher school to teaching not in the official language create gaps in opportunities to get quality higher education at a chosen university for representatives of national minorities, reduces mobility of students, actually captures future workforce in regions densely populated by national minorities. In the long run, this could lead to increased regional isolation, which will create grounds for growth of unemployment, unequal distribution of labor resources, restrictions on employment of narrow qualification specialists. Besides, intensifying teaching in national languages of minorities by reducing teaching of the state language is a direct violation of the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. The Report positively assessed the fact that the MES continued involvement of employers and professional associations into development of the public policy in the sphere of vocational education, but the statement that it was restarted after a five-year pause is not true. The Report mentions benefits of the program "Youth in Action", but omits the fact that Ukraine still has no regulation for long-term stay of volunteers of the European Volunteer Service, which would enable them to implement long-term projects. The new visa regulation also completely restricts implementation of international projects under this program in Ukraine. In 2010, the numerous volunteers who were in Ukraine within the framework of the European Volunteer Service program "Youth in Action" had difficulties when applying for visas in their countries and when obtaining registration for a long stay in Ukraine. Local authorities refused to register volunteers. The Report fails to mention that in Ukraine, there is no recognition of informal education. Experts: · Andriy Chubyk, "Strategy XXI" Global Studies Center · Andriy Kohut, Agency for Legislative Initiatives, “SIM” Legal and Political Studies Center · Viktoria Syumar, Institute of Mass Information · Volodymyr Kupriy, TCK Creative Center · Hanna Golubovska-Onisimova, NGO "MAMA-86" · Halyna Senyk, Independent Human Rights Expert · Iryna Kravchuk, NGO "Ukrainian Alternative" · Iryna Solonenko, International "Renaissance" Foundation · Iryna Sushko, NGO "Europe Without Barriers" · Ihor Kohut, Agency for Legislative Initiatives · Kateryna Shynkaruk, Institute for Economic Research and Policy Consulting · Dmytro Lyapin, Institute for Property and Freedom · Dmytro Shulga, International "Renaissance" Foundation · Myhaylo Honchar, "NOMOS" Center · Natalia Andrusevych, Resource & Analysis Center "Society and Environment" · Svyatoslav Pavlyuk, PAUCI Foundation · Yuriy Vdovenko, Polissya Foundation for International and Regional Studies · Yaryna Borenko, Center for Educational Initiatives · Yaryna Yasynevych, Center for Legal and Political Studies "SIM"
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