“Is the Office of the President deliberately delaying the implementation of laws and why is the budget losing hundreds of millions of hryvnias?”, — write: epravda.com.ua
Draft Law No. 11416-d on the historic increase in taxes for the majority of Ukrainians has been waiting for President Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s signature for more than 40 days. The new tax rules were supposed to come into effect on October 1 and bring UAH 30 billion to the budget to finance the war by the end of 2024. However, due to delays in signing, the law entered into force only on December 1, and some of its provisions – from the beginning of 2025. This is not the only delay that has led to significant budget losses. The President also did not sign the draft law on the advance payment of distilleries, which the Verkhovna Rada adopted during the week. This document is supposed to close the tax evasion scheme by distilleries, but it waited for the signature of the head of state for 2.5 months and received it only on December 31. Another example is draft law No. 11090 on increasing tobacco excise taxes, which was sent to the President’s Office for signature on December 9. It was supposed to enter into force on January 1, but it has been almost a month without a signature. Read also: They talked and smoked. A lobbying battle is unfolding over excise rates on IQOS and cigarettes Advertisement: This phenomenon is so common that it has received the name “silent veto”: ignoring the draft law submitted for signature by the president contrary to the constitutional obligation to sign the document within 15 days. The EP analyzed 2,201 laws adopted since the beginning of 2021 and tracked the stages of their passage..weekly_charts figure{margin-inline-start:0px;!important;margin-inline-end:0px;!important;font-size:13px}label[for^=”inputs”]{font-size:14px} import{Runtime,Inspector}from”https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@observablehq/runtime@5/dist/runtime.js”;import define from”https://api .observablehq.com/d/9b5fd3217ab65b86@506.js?v=4″; new Runtime().module(define,name=>{if(name===”vis1″)return new Inspector(document.querySelector(“#observablehq-vis1-9e712b76”));}); To avoid the influence of individual projects that remain unsigned for years, the median value was used. For example, the scandalous draft law No. 5655 on the reform of local urban planning, sent for the president’s signature in October 2022, according to the website of the Verkhovna Rada, has not yet been signed.Advertisement: The president needs 19 days to sign most of the draft laws that reach Bankova. However, these terms depend on the type of project. For “ceremonial” projects, such as bilateral or multilateral international agreements, the deadlines are usually set within the constitutional framework and amount to 15 days. On the other hand, for “monetary” draft laws related to economic policy or industry development, this period increases to 24 days. In addition, they are much more difficult to pass consideration in the Verkhovna Rada. If an ordinary project takes a month or two to pass from the committee to final approval, then for economic and industry projects, this period reaches 115 days on average. Of course, this can be explained by the complexity and scale of such documents, because they require additional time for analysis. The Office of the President can also explain the delays by the need to carefully study the projects before making a decision on veto or signature. However, Yaroslav Zheleznyak, People’s Deputy from the “Voice” faction and deputy chairman of the Committee on Finance, Tax and Customs Policy, believes that lobbyists often intervene at this stage, trying to postpone changes that are not beneficial for business..weekly_charts figure{margin-inline- start:0px;!important;margin-inline-end:0px;!important;font-size:13px}label[for^=”inputs”]{font-size:14px} import{Runtime,Inspector}from”https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@observablehq/runtime@5/dist/runtime.js”;import define from”https://api .observablehq.com/d/9b5fd3217ab65b86@506.js?v=4″; new Runtime().module(define,name=>{if(name===”vis2″)return new Inspector(document.querySelector(“#observablehq-vis2-9e712b76”));}); “Every day, due to blocking the signing, we donate 580.6 thousand euros or 25.2 million hryvnias to the tobacco business. That is, the direct non-fulfillment of the Constitution and failure to sign the law on time cost the budget 126 million hryvnias! These are taxes, that is, the army’s money,” he notes. However, the problem is likely to be more complex than just lobbying. Social and humanitarian draft laws often go through the parliamentary hall for a long time, and then also wait for the president’s signature longer than the terms established by the Constitution, which can be explained by their “sensitivity”. Read also: The 120 billion question: what will happen if the “military” personal income tax is taken away from local communities? More than half of the projects from the field of “State construction” are in the Office of the President for a record 37 days. These are mainly projects related to decentralization and interaction with local authorities. In the last eight years, here, with rare exceptions, one direction is the transfer of more and more power from the central to the regional level. As the statistics of signed bills show, the central government (Office of the President) does this very reluctantly. Some draft laws simply lose their relevance due to sharp political or social changes in the country. “Why not use the right of veto? Here comes the time for speculation: conflict of interests? Reluctance to repel lobbyists? In any case, imposing a veto or signing is a loud signal to interested groups. It is less provocative to simply leave the document until better times,” the analytical center believes “Laboratory of legislative initiatives”. They add that the requirement to sign the draft law within 15 days is not clearly stated in the Constitution, which was used by all Ukrainian presidents. Therefore, without changes to the Basic Law, the practice of “silent veto” cannot be overcome.