Ukrainian Civil Society platform: in need of new strategic lines and focus on vital matters

Last week in Kyiv Steering Committee members of the EaP Civil Society Forum met with the representative of the Ukrainian national platform to discuss the current developments in the Ukrainian civil society. Active participants of the working groups of the national platform representing various civil society organisations were addressing their concerns, expressing expectations and asking SC members for support in drawing the new strategic lines for Ukrainian platform for the next five- year period.

The people addressed the issues of regulatory business environment and the need to diminish the distortions in the business environment and improve their representative structures in regards of civil society. The representatives of various CS organisations mentioned the importance of information policy of Ukraine in the EU and reporting on the events in independent media, as well as focus and common work on the actions, related to the EU Association agreement with Ukraine. A new social and political problem of IDPs (illegally displaced persons) had been put on the agenda as requiring the necessary action, since the current government is not able to deal with those issues at this stage. Moreover, the need of launching the organisation of probation (free legal consultations, 24 hours) was mentioned and joined initiative European Public Initiative of Ukraine (23 organisations) underlined.

The National Coordinator of the Ukrainian Civil society Forum Oleksandr Sushko addressed the problem of the official representation of the Ukrainian civil society under the process of structuring the EU-Ukraine Civil Society Platform as envisioned in the Association Agreement taking into account the structures of ECOSOC (European Committee of Economic and Social Affairs), which is responsible from the side of EU to create 2 sided CS platform. The platform agreed to put all their attempts to initiate the right representation of CS platform in the EU institutions.

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