Radio Free Europe
The chairman of the Ukrainian parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, has defended the country’s “anti-oligarch” law but said that Kyiv has agreed to defer its implementation in keeping with the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission.
Stefanchuk told RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service in an exclusive interview on September 22 that he did not believe the law, passed in 2021, was perfect. But he said that the effectiveness of the legislation would be shown once implemented, adding that it had already had a positive impact.
The law essentially gives tycoons the choice of refraining from politics or selling their media assets and lists people who meet certain criteria, such as having significant economic or political weight, to be registered as oligarchs.
Stefanchuk pointed to the sale of properties by “a lot” of oligarchs as evidence of the law’s effectiveness.
However, the law — part of a broader “de-oligarchization” campaign by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — has been criticized at home and abroad as a “populist” measure that could be abused to target political opponents or their backers.
The law was subjected to a review by the Venice Commission, an advisory body of the Council of Europe, which concluded in June that the legislation took a “personalized approach” that could not be considered a democratic response to the problem of oligarchization.
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https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-anti-oligarch-law-stefanchuk-venice-commission/32605997.html
