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Kyiv's crowded political agenda on 2 March 2018
Summary
A look back at a day when an energy emergency plan, an anti-corruption court bill and a language law ruling framed Ukrainian politics.
What did Ukraine's government have to deal with on 2 March 2018? The answer was an energy contingency plan, and it came on top of two other developments from the preceding days.
On 2 March 2018, the Cabinet of Ministers introduced a national action plan for five days, intended to prevent an energy crisis after Russia's Gazprom refused to supply gas. The measures included switching generating companies from gas to fuel oil and suspending the work of educational institutions.
Two decisions just before
The emergency plan followed a busy stretch in Ukrainian politics. On 1 March 2018, the Verkhovna Rada passed in first reading a draft law on the High Anti-Corruption Court of Ukraine. A first reading is only the opening stage of the legislative process, and the bill still had to return to parliament for further votes.
A few days earlier, on 28 February 2018, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine ruled the law "On the principles of the state language policy" unconstitutional. As a result, the law lost force.
A snapshot
Taken together, the three items show the range of issues in play across those days: a judicial reform bill moving through parliament, a court ruling that removed an existing language law, and a government scrambling to protect the energy system from a gas supply refusal. The five-day plan was a temporary, emergency measure, in contrast to the longer legislative and judicial processes under way elsewhere.
