The presentation was opened by Ihor Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, who briefly described the main priorities pursued by the Agency, and reported on the public discussions arranged in various regions of Ukraine for the purpose of the study.

Marcin Walecki, Chief of OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, noted that the presented report was the most complete and fundamental profile study, which would remain valid for the years to come. Mr Walecki commended the report for the interesting and simple presentation of information.

The introductory words were followed by the presentation of the main opinions and ideas of the report by Denys Kovryzhenko, Legal Programmes Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

The presentation was completed with the discussion of the presented analytical overview.

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The National Report “Regulation of Political Parties: Current State and Direction of Reforms” has resulted from the discussions of the key issues in the regulation of the functioning of political parties, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties in Ukraine. The report also offers recommendations on the solutions and prospects for the improvement of the Ukrainian legislation which regulates the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices.

During the round table, the Agency presented the study “Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms”, which is based on the discussions of the key problematic issues related to the regulation of the activities of political parties in Ukraine, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal political party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties. The report also offers recommendations on the ways and prospects to improve the Ukrainian legislation regulating the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices. The study was undertaken by Denys Kovryzhenko, Director for Legal Programmes of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, with the financial support of the European Union within the framework of a joint EU-OSCE/ODIHR project.

The round table was opened by Marcin Walecki, Chief of OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, who defined the main aim of the national report on the legislation regulating the political parties in Ukraine – implementation of democratic transformations in the area of political party regulation. On behalf of ODIHR, Mr Walecki also expressed gratitude to the Agency for Legislative Initiatives for the fruitful cooperation during the project implementation.

After Mr Kovryzhenko presented the report, the following issues were discussed: (a) general principles for the regulation of establishment, functioning, and liquidation of political parties; (b) internal political party democracy; and (c) state and private funding of political parties and election campaigns.

Mykhaylo Shelep, Executive Director of the Centre for Political Analysis and Election Consulting, noted that timeliness of the study for the Ukrainian society. The expert, however, believes that the focus should be shifted from the ways to improve the legislation to the mechanisms for the implementation and observance of laws, since whatever imperfect the legislation may be, it will not be able to solve any problems if it is not observed.

Taras Plakhtiy, Member of the Male Kolo Society, emphasised the necessity to solve the problems of the internal political party democracy. The political scientist believes that political parties should deliver the following final product: (a) acquisition of public powers, which requires existence of a rigid hierarchical structure, and (b) generation of creative solutions for the current problematic issues, which requires developed horizontal links within the political party. In such a way, solution of this contradiction should become the starting point in the reform of the political party regulation in Ukraine.

Yuriy Kuzhelyuk, Member of Lviv City Council, believes that the main reason behind the degradation of the political party system in Ukraine is the constantly changing legislation, which not only sets additional barriers to political parties, but also undermines the voters’ trust to the political parties. Mr Kuzhelyuk also considers that the recent amendments, made to the law on local elections, had both positive and negative consequences. Thus, the positive changes included a ban on participation of political blocs, which often destabilise the functioning of the elected bodies, while cancellation of the possibility for the self-nomination of the mayoral candidates is regarded as a negative change.

Oles Starovoyt, Head of the Ideology Section of Our Ukraine Lviv Oblast Office Executive Committee, noted that the main problem of the imperfect political party regulation in Ukraine was lack of the public demand for such political parties, that would reflect the interests of specific voter groups, when a political party only strives to get the power without any general prospects and detailed action plans for the future.

Anatoliy Romanyuk, Director of the Centre for Political Studies, generally supported the recommendations presented in the report, having stressed the necessity to introduce state funding of political parties with efficient public control. The expert also referred to the European experience in termination of political parties: if a political party does not participate in elections a number of times in a row, it is cancelled automatically. Mr Romanyuk considers that members of political parties are not sufficiently interested in the proposals expressed by experts in terms of improvement of legislation related to the regulation of political parties.

Yuriy Shveda, Senior Lecturer of the Political Sciences Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Lviv National Ivan Franko University, noted that the presented report meets the recommendations of the Venice Commission and reflects all aspects where the Ukrainian legislation is incompliant with the European standards. In the expert’s opinion, the legislative regulation of the political parties should ensure the balance between the liberal approach (whereby a political party is part of the society) and the public power paradigm (where a political party is identified with the government, while it is the government that regulates the activities of political parties). Mr Shveda considers that in any case competition should be ensured at the local level with the possibility of self-nomination, as well as a simplified procedure for the registration of political parties on the basis of an application should be introduced.

Certain round table participants, such as Vasyl Pasichnyk, Assistant Professor of the European Integration and Law Department of Lviv Regional Public Administration Institute, Olha Batyshcheva, Senior Lecturer of the Document Studies and Information Activities of the Ostrog Academy National University,Vasyl Marchuk, Director of Precarpathian Centre for Political Studies and European Integration Studies of Ivano-Frankivsk, were generally positive about the report, but noted that the study lacked the methodological basis – it was focused only on the normative side of the regulation of political parties omitting the substantial, from the political studies perspective, aspects of the functioning of political parties.

During the round table, the Agency presented the study “Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms”, which is based on the discussions of the key problematic issues related to the regulation of the activities of political parties in Ukraine, including those related to the participation of political parties in elections, campaign funding, internal political party democracy, gender balance, complicated procedures set for the establishment and termination of political parties. The report also offers recommendations on the ways and prospects to improve the Ukrainian legislation regulating the functioning of political parties on the basis of the best European practices. The study was undertaken by Denys Kovryzhenko, Director for Legal Programmes of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, with the financial support of the European Union within the framework of a joint EU-OSCE/ODIHR project.

The round table was opened by Ihor Kohut, Chairman of the Board of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, who described the regional expert discussions which preceded the preparation of the study, as well as emphasised the critical importance played by political parties in Ukraine’s social life before the local elections. He also suggested that the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance could establish a working group to analyse the proposals on the improvement of the functioning of political parties.

Oleksandr Omelchenko, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance, spoke about the problematic aspects related to the operation of Ukraine’s political parties. In particular, he stressed the difference between the registered political parties in Ukraine and the number of the relatively active ones, including those represented in the Parliament. In Mr Omelchenko’s opinion, a considerable difference between these figures evidences a problem in the democratic functioning of political parties. Mr Omelchenko also noted the importance for Ukraine to develop its own political party model and general political system.

Rene Bebeau, Senior Project Manager of the OSCE Project Coordinator, said he was confident that the presented study should become the basis for the development of further proposals on the improvement of the political system in Ukraine. Marcin Walecki, Chief of the OSCE/ODIHR Democratic Governance Unit, stressed that the presented report was the most complete study of the topic, and that it also contained the most successful practices of the European countries.

During the discussion of the study and the Ukrainian political party system, Ihor Zhdanov, President of the Open Ukraine Think Tank, expressed his assumption that with renewal of the Ukrainian Constitution in the its 1996 version, the Ukrainian political system will go back to its condition of 1998-2004, which was characterised by instable faction structure, as well as a formal relations between political parties and members of parliament acting on their behalf in the Verkhovna Rada. In this context, Yuriy Klyuchkovskyi, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for State Development and Local Self-Governance, mentioned that the role of political parties in the political life of the country may decrease. He also pointed out to the necessity of the legislative support to the internal political party democracy. Volodymyr Stretovych, Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Legal Support to the Law-Enforcement Activities, pointed out to the danger of monopolisation of the political party system by one political party.

Regulation of Political Parties in Ukraine: Current State and Directions of Reforms