The Ukrainian businessman, head of the Federation of Employers of Ukraine Dmytro Firtash got promoted again. Last weekend the Ukrainian president appointed him head of the National Trilateral Social and Economic Council. His appointment was not unexpected since Firtash had been unanimously recommended to this position by all the council members. This fact cannot be ignored since it gave the answer to all the questions and ironic assumptions of his opponents saying that one of the most known Ukrainian politicians was gradually losing his influence.
In general, the information space took the new appointment quite calmly. Only the leader of the Communist Party of Ukraine Petro Symonenko could not help commenting it. His press-service informed that this appointment is “out of all reason” and that they “set the wolf to keep the sheep.”
Meanwhile, the new head of the National Trilateral Social and Economic Council will have a lot of work to do since the dialog in the triangle “power-business-employees” needs very good communication and its model has to be changed. What are the goals the head of the council has set for himself? What is he going to do first of all? This is what The Day asked Dmytro Firtash about.
“The National Trilateral Social and Economic Council will make the basis of the national stability and will protect the interests of employees and business,” he told The Day. “Social dialog is common in Europe. Today, during the economic and financial crisis we can see the role of such institutions grow in the developed Western countries,” he said. In his opinion, it is important for every party to hear the others and be ready to compromise. “The faster the National Council finds the answers to the most burning questions the faster the single vision of Ukraine’s development will be shaped,” Firtash emphasized. According to him, in 2012 the National Council will have to find the ways to create jobs, develop small and medium-sized enterprises, improve the quality of professional training, relieve tax burden, and reform the payment system. Besides, it will consider possibilities to develop small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine. According to Firtash, big business is interested in developing small and medium-sized enterprises giving up to 50 percent of the GPD and up to 80 percent of working places in the developed countries.
