Oleksandr Yefremov, leader of the Party of Regions faction, has called on the opposition to vote for bills on Ukraine's European integration.
“The parliament currently has no coordinated position on the adoption
of these bills. We have analyzed these bills very closely. They meet
the EU standards,” he told the parliamentary conciliatory council on
Monday.
“We are ready to support [the bills] in the first and second readings
and we would ask our colleagues from the opposition, because the
Communist Party faction is not voting, to join us and, in this case,
resolve the problem with the easing of the visa regime,” he said.
Yefremov reiterated that these bills “were considered at the highest
level of the EU administration and they were recommended to our
government.”
Yefremov suggested working on the bills until Thursday and adopting them on Thursday.
According to earlier reports, the Batkivschyna party published on its
website on April 6 a statement by Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the
Batkivschyna faction, Oleh Tiahnybok, leader of the Svoboda faction and
Vitali Klitschko, leader of the UDAR faction, stating their readiness to
back the bills aimed at the European integration of Ukraine, including
those that will be submitted to the parliament by the Cabinet.
“We have supported and will duly support the laws on European
integration that were drawn up and considered in accordance with the
parliamentary procedures, including those submitted by the government,
like it happened, for example, during the ratification of the changes to
the agreement on easing the visa regulations,” the statement says.
At the same time, the leaders of the three factions reiterated that
the opposition has its own package of bills it has drawn up as a backup
package in case the administration does not draw up draft laws on
Ukraine’s European integration.
