Crimea asked for real, not declarative, autonomy for its 60th anniversary as part of Ukraine
Simferopol, February 20 (Navigator, Astra Yazyka) – On the 60th anniversary of being part of Ukraine, the Crimean authorities asked for real, not declarative, autonomy. The corresponding changes must be taken into account when amending the Constitution of Ukraine.
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Before the start of the session, Russian activists tied mourning ribbons on the doors of the central entrance of the Supreme Council of Crimea, as a symbol of a black date in the history of the peninsula. The main demand is to return to the Constitution of Crimea of 1992 in order to protect the republic from “Ukraine, which is burning in a national-oligarchic war.”
In the session hall, the deputies demonstrated the lack of a festive mood on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Crimea’s entry into Ukraine in their speeches.
Thus, member of the “Union” faction Svetlana Savchenko noted that February 19, 1954 is not a holiday.
“Unfortunately, given as a gift as a pledge of the centuries-old brotherhood of peoples, Crimea in 1991 found itself hostage to the catastrophe of the collapse of the USSR,” the deputy noted.
She emphasized that for 23 years the rights and powers of the autonomy have been curtailed, infringed and ignored. The special status of the territory provides the opportunity to independently solve its problems, outside the powers of the state. The economic component means the right of Crimeans to use, own and dispose of all the resources of Crimea, the humanitarian component means to determine their educational and cultural policies, the legal component means a clear hierarchy of laws, where the norms of the Constitution of Ukraine and the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea prevail over all legislation.
“Today the same Budget Code is placed above the constitutional norms of Crimea and this is not normal. And of course, it is not normal that today an autonomous republic does not have its own representation in the government bodies of Ukraine,” Savchenko concluded.
Regional deputy Rustam Temirgaliev emphasized the economic component in his speech. He emphasized that as the Deputy Prime Minister of the Crimean government, he often has to listen in high offices that Crimea is a subsidized region, where the average salary does not exceed 3 thousand UAH.
“Crimea is subsidized and poor for one simple reason - Crimea has no economic powers and no opportunity to manage the resources that exist in Crimea,” Temirgaliev is convinced. – The volume of taxes collected in the territory of Crimea into the central budget is twice the volume of subsidies and subventions that we receive from the state budget. We must correct this paradox."
The deputy emphasized that now an important historical moment has come in the development of the state of Ukraine, when Crimea has a real chance to lobby for amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine and legislate the powers to collect taxes and fees for the use of the subsoil of the peninsula, where only Chernomorneftegaz PJSC produces 1,5 billion cubic meters of gas.
“Regional” Vladimir Klychnikov focused on the political component of autonomy. The fact that the transfer of Crimea took place through simple decisions of the presidiums of the union republics went unnoticed in the united USSR, but after several dozen it affected the fate of the Crimeans. The referendum for the re-establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic as a subject of a union treaty was left without implementation of the results, the declaration of state sovereignty was ignored, and no one asked the opinion of Crimea whether or not to become part of an independent Ukraine.
“Today the powers of the Crimean Constitution are ignored. When adopting laws that for some reason are considered above the Constitution of Crimea, they forget about autonomy, and even by-laws are adopted without taking into account the powers of Crimea,” Klychnikov emphasized.
Proposals to create a working group to amend the Constitution of Ukraine and Crimea and conduct a public opinion poll on the status of Crimea, to involve Russia as a guarantor of maintaining the status of autonomy led to criminal proceedings by the SBU based on an appeal from one of the people’s deputies.
“Under the article on preparing an attack on the territorial integrity of Ukraine?” Klychnikov emphasized. – I ask you not to confuse the issue of the status of Crimea with the right to self-determination. This could happen if there is a coup in the country.”
Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov also emphasized in his speech that expanding the powers of the Crimean Autonomy is needed to protect against radical sentiments in Ukraine. According to him, in his decree on the celebration of the 60th anniversary of Crimea’s entry into Ukraine, President Yanukovych noted the historical and political significance of this event, and it lies, first of all, in the fact that for 60 years Crimea remains a visible symbol of the inextricable unity of Russian and Ukrainian peoples.
“This is why Crimea evokes such hatred among all Russophobes and neo-Nazis. They are haunted by the very fact of the existence of our autonomy, our existence as living evidence of the spiritual and historical unity of Ukraine and Russia,” Konstantinov noted.
The autonomy's existing powers are sufficient when Russian-Ukrainian friendship is not called into question, and the central government in the country is focused on cooperation with Russia.
“However, as the experience of the political development of Ukraine shows, Crimea haters and Russophobes sometimes break through to power,” the speaker pointed out. “We must not allow these forces to have even the slightest chance of realizing their plans regarding Crimea, no matter how the political situation develops.”
To protect against such prospects, the parliament approved the concept of amending the Constitution of Ukraine to improve the status of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, developed by members of the Constitutional Assembly Commission on Administrative-Territorial Structure and Local Self-Government and the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Crimea. The document concerns changes to Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, providing for the determination of the legal status of the autonomy, the division of powers with public authorities, guaranteeing the protection of the rights of the autonomy and the safety of its borders, participation in the work on normative legal acts affecting the interests of the autonomy, the right of legislative initiative and independent budgetary and financial basis with securing property and lands in the ownership of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
To implement the concept, the deputies turned to President Yanukovych and the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament Rybak with a request to include representatives of Crimea in the working group to prepare changes to the Constitution of Ukraine.
However, not all parliamentarians were satisfied with the planned expansion of the autonomy's powers. The leader of the Kurultai-Rukh faction, Refat Chubarov, said that the proposed concept is the vision of one group of people, in this case not even ethnic.
“These are people who want power exclusively for themselves, to realize their personal interests, not even group, not collective ones. There is nothing in this concept that we can offer to the center in ensuring the future sustainable development of Crimea,” concluded Chubarov.
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