The Ukrainian parliament has passed in the first reading the bill on extending the moratorium on agricultural land sale. Overall 250 MPs voted to ban the purchase and sale of such land until the law on farming land circulation is adopted. Interestingly, on October 2, 2012, the deputies did just the opposite: most of them categorically refused to support a similar legislative initiative of their colleagues. In general, the land question has begun to stir up a fever among the MPs and the top governmental echelons on the eve of the elections.
In an interview with The Day, Vice-Premier Serhii Tihipko said he favored extending the moratorium for at least a year because land reform was far from being completed. “We have no right to make a mistake. Land reform is very important for the people and the country, so we should not hurry. People will be able to gain if a transparent market is formed, but they may also lose if the rules are imperfect,” Tihipko said. So, in his opinion, we must first try out the new land law on a pilot basis and only then implement it all over the country.
Later, Verkhovna Rada Speaker Volodymyr Lytvyn also assured the public that there would be no agricultural land sales market in Ukraine in the near future. In the speaker’s view, parliament should pass a legislative act that will pacify people as soon as possible and “be prepared to make a simple and easy-to-grasp decision.”
On the same day, Oleksandr Yefremov, leader of the Party of Regions faction, announced that the leadership of Ukraine might resolve to hold a referendum on the introduction of a land market. He made it clear that this matter had not yet been discussed anywhere but its importance provided ample grounds to assume that this course of events was possible.
Meanwhile, the MPs continue to bring land reform closer. Particularly, the State Land Bank has in fact been established. The Verkhovna Rada appointed the other day five supervisory board members of this bank which is supposed to issue credits to individuals.
The Day asked Hennadii NOVIKOV, chairman of the Agrarian Union of Ukraine, what caused the people’s deputies and governmental officials to take so different attitudes to the land question. Here is the answer:
“This happens because, if discussed on the election eve, the land question can catapult some to parliament and eject others from it. In principle, most of those who live and work in the countryside oppose [permission to buy and sell land] and support the idea of a referendum. The authorities are also aware that the populace is not prepared for a free market of land. It is a proven fact. It is important not only to draw up a new law on the land market, but also, and first of all, to conduct the inventory of all lands. In my view, you should not run ahead of the locomotive, for it may run you over. How can you sell if you don’t know what the object of trade is? But this is the situation that is emerging today, for many land plots have not been clearly delimited. If land is to be sold without this problem being solved, who will be able to distinguish between a real owner and an impostor? So the land question should be put in order as soon as possible – all the more so that there are things to be corrected and simplified.
“It still happens that it takes us three years to have a lease contract registered at the State Agency for Land Resources. And we want to sell land under these conditions? The first thing to do is to draw up an electronic land cadastre, carry out the inventory, and pass a law on land circulation – otherwise, we will run the risk of seeing an upsurge of shady land schemes on the market. We must solve these problems. Unless we do this, it may happen that a land plot will be sold dozens of times. There is a danger that what is now happening near Kyiv, when it is not clear who owns land, will be occurring nationwide.”
