Tax amendments and personal interest – President v RADA

There are very few things the President of Ukraine and I have in common or agree upon completely.  We share a love of architecture, we both like Donetsk as a city (it happens to be my second favourite city in Ukraine after Odessa), we both believe that Ukraine should remain outside of NATO and the CSTO, participating in actions with both that are beneficial to Ukraine or the world in general, such as peacekeeping, natural disaster aid teams etc. and a few other assorted subjects.

We may even agree about the necessary reforms for Ukraine many times, but we will certainly disagree about how they are implemented and the unnecessarily poisonous politics involved in getting things done.

We certainly would not agree about the necessity of installing the power vertical under the guise of forcing through necessary reforms to the detriment of democracy and rule of law.   That said, Hungary and Georgia have done exactly the same and Hungary is in the EU and Georgia takes many plaudits for its modernisation programme and leaps up the international league tables.

Maybe I am completely wrong and modernisers cannot afford democracy to get in the way of the reform process.

Italy seems to have been welcomed with open arms by the EU and global markets alike having removed every democratically elected official from government and installing ex-EU employees and assorted technocrats to solve the Italian problems and carry through required reform.

Possibly I am too set in my ways.  China seems to be doing rather well without democracy.  Maybe the power vertical is necessarily more important than democracy when major reforms are needed.

We have seen executive orders in the USA to circumvent democracy and abstract parliamentary laws in the UK employed to overturn unhelpful votes from the House of Lords in recent years on an increasing basis.

The same can be said for the terribly worded ACTA agreement signed by the EU recently and the cloak and dagger way that legislation was put together completely ignoring the usual democratic processes, resulting in mass demonstrations across the EU by citizens and  several sovereign governments now trying to undo what they signed up to by refusing to ratify.

Democracy it seems, is taking a back step for necessary reforms not only in Ukraine.

Anyway, once again a rare occasion arises where I again completely agree with the Ukrainian president, and it relates to the on-going attempts to amend the new Tax Code that is now law by some parliamentarians.

In his opening address of the new RADA session, the President robustly and publicly criticised the government for trying to amend the new Tax Code to benefit their personal interests. Bravo – He is quite right too!

Calling for tax rules to be the same for everyone would normally win him many plaudits domestically and from other groups of similar opinion globally, although the power vertical issue will mute any such noises from those who would echo such a view.

However, words are not enough.  Despite the image painted by the media, the President and parliament are not as cohesive and mutually rubber-stamping as  they claim.  He has, since taking office, used his veto on many legislative acts penned by his party much to their annoyance.  Also parliament has not adopted all recommendations sent to it by the Presidential Administration over various proposals.

The question therefore is whether the President will on this occasion prevent the personal interests of those in  government he has publicly recognised as wanting to interfere with the tax legislation to occur or not.  In Ms Akimova he has one of the best economists Ukraine has to offer in his administration.  A woman it has to be said, who is as sharp as they come, knows her subject inside and out, but is incredibly plain speaking.  (Ms Akimova is probably the best President Ukraine will never have.)

If such amendments are sent to the President, who will give ground?  Will there be a public fallout?  Will heads (metaphorically) roll if this public hint not to push their luck goes unheeded?

One to watch for all those who think everything between the Ukrainian government and president is a smooth and seamless arrangement.  All is not how it appears or is reported!