Page 46 - BNE_magazine_06_2019

46 I Eastern Europe bne June 2019
In 2017 the FAS proposed developing a programme for selling existing core assets of inefficient companies, with reforms advised in the healthcare sector, road building, agriculture, and utilities.
Russia’s privatisation programme was re-launched with much fanfare in 2008 after Dmitri Medvedev took over as president. The liberal programme was largely written by economist Sergei Guriev and feted by investors. But the programme immediately stalled thanks to the 2008 global financial crisis and Guriev fled into exile to become the chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) after he was caught up in a state investigation into oil tycoon and dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
Since 2017 the government and the Ministry of Economic Development has been consistently cutting the privatisation plans, while the new economic growth paradigm announced by President Vladimir Putin for his 2018-2024 term largely focuses on state-driven infrastructure investment.
Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service assumes that in 2017-2018 the share of the state in the economy already exceeds 60-70% of GDP.
has the legal ability to do so, whether he will face an appeal from opposing politicians, and whether a political consensus will emerge to hold early elections, regardless of the legal prospects," he added.
"It was our understanding that not only can he not dismiss parliament for the next 30 days, when the new coalition must be formed after it was dissolved on May 17, but he could not dismiss parliament within six months of the
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MPs of the newly elected parliament taking their oaths, which would be in December under the current schedule," the expert added in the note.
Zawada added that although Poroshenko Bloc and People’s Front lawmakers have made statements that they are ready for an early vote, they could be "bluffing considering that we are confident they would much prefer for the vote to occur on schedule, on October 27".
"We believe it’s entirely possible that Zelenskiy’s dismissal declaration is merely the start of a legal battle," he added. "On the other hand, considering there’s no parliamentary coalition,
a consensus could possibly be reached with single-mandate MPs, as well as the Opposition Bloc, Radical Party and Fatherland factions."
For the children
Zelenskiy also took the opportunity of the speech to strike the policy iron for the first time and indicated he will stick to his liberal European-orientated policy promises made during the election campaign.
In the same speech, the new president urged lawmakers to adopt a number
of urgent laws "within the next two months", specifically, on the abolition of parliamentary immunity, and on crimi- nal liability for illegal enrichment. At the top of that Zelenskiy demanded to dismiss the chief of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) Vasily Gritsak, prosecu- tor-general Yuri Lutsenko and Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak.
"You [the parliament] will have two months to do this. Do it. Take all the medals for yourself. Those are pretty good points for the early parliamentary elections. I am dissolving the Verkhovna Rada of the eighth convocation," Zelenskiy's told lawmakers assembled in the parliament building to witness the swearing in ceremony.
The policy agenda of the new president remains largely unknown as he gave little detail during his campaign, however, his speech to the parliament was taken by Ukraine’s supporters as positive as he continued to portray himself representing change and uninterested in political power for himself. He again said that his first priority is to stop the war in Donbas and return the prisoners of war home.
“I was asked very often what exactly
I am ready to do to stop the war. It’s
a strange question. What are you ready to do, Ukrainians, for the lives of your relatives? What? I assure, for our heroes to stop dying, I am ready to do