Secrets of mineral deal

The top priority for our country and nation today is survival and victory in the war. Everything must serve this goal — because if we don’t survive, Russia will take control of our natural resources. Partnership with the U.S. is one of the key factors in our victory, and it’s worth making compromises to meet the Americans halfway. For Trump, who’s used to transactional diplomacy (“you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”), this is a natural approach to partnership.

1. The agreement contains elements of “external oversight,” which usually causes a lot of anxiety here. But under our conditions of widespread corruption and dysfunction (people usually say corruption is worse, but I actually think dysfunction is even more damaging), this kind of external oversight can actually be seen as a positive.

At the same time, there are a huge number of unanswered questions — and that’s creating a lot of tension.

Now, let me say what I like and don’t like most about all this.

I’m very pleased that the government team managed to turn what was essentially a predatory debt obligation into a decent memorandum of understanding. That deserves to be in the history books. 

"But as a citizen, I’m deeply concerned about Ukrainian parliamentarism and constitutionalism, which I see as one of the nation’s and state’s greatest assets. And I really don’t like that instead of strengthening these important political foundations, we’re weakening them."

2. Parliament needs to have full information on what it’s ratifying and how. We have the main agreement, which has been submitted to parliament, and then there are annexes (one of them is called the Limited Partnership Agreement, and it’s mentioned more than 20 times in the main document).

Either these annexes already exist, and they’re being hidden — which raises serious red flags, especially since there’s talk that select journalists have already seen these documents. Any claims about the annexes being “classified” don’t hold up and only further erode trust. The government has no right to sign non-disclosure agreements with members of parliament.

"Or the annexes haven’t been developed yet — in which case rushing to ratify an agreement that doesn’t fully exist on paper could end very badly."

Parliament represents the people, and things like this cannot be hidden — especially during wartime, when trust between the government and the people is more precious than ever. Lawmakers understand this, which is why so many MPs took part in the open session of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Oleksandr Merezhko. The public is disappointed, distrustful, and afraid of getting blindsided — so refusing to engage in broad public communication is a political mistake that will impact all future key processes.

3. The second crucial issue is the Constitution of Ukraine. We can debate whether the agreement aligns with the Constitution or not — but our opinions don’t matter. There’s only one body with the exclusive right to decide on constitutionality: the Constitutional Court.

"I’m convinced we need a ruling from the Constitutional Court — both for the Ukrainian people and for our American partners — so we don’t end up in a situation where the agreement is later struck down as unconstitutional."

We need to restart the Constitutional Court, which is currently effectively frozen, and quickly get its decision.

It’s a good thing that the main agreement text now includes a preamble stating that the Limited Partnership Agreement (the annex) has not yet been submitted to parliament and that the main agreement applies to the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders. Thanks to everyone involved for that.

What needs to be done?

I firmly believe that the main agreement must be ratified. There’s no excuse for voting against it. We cannot afford to risk permanently losing our partnership with the United States.

It’s absolutely essential to immediately set up mechanisms for parliamentary oversight of the agreement’s implementation. This would strengthen the role of parliament, boost public trust, and help avoid accusations of surrendering national interests, corruption, and so on.

I urge all members of parliament and government officials not to make grave political mistakes that could come back to haunt us all. Trust is the most valuable capital — it’s hard to build, easy to squander, and nearly impossible to restore.

Source

About the author. Valerii Pekar, lecturer at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

The editors do not always share the opinions expressed by the blog authors.