Verkhovna Rada Speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk must become the key figure in resuming de-facto activities of the parliamentary majority, which frustrated after two lawmakers left the coalition of democratic forces.

According to the President’s press-office, Yushchenko’s Chief of Staff Victor Baloha voiced this position of President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko today.

He stressed that the President points out to serious problems in the Verkhovna Rada’s work, which were caused by a number of internal discrepancies inside the coalition. It caused a long-lasting interval in the legislative activities of the Verkhovna Rada, which is due to adopt decisions, extremely important for the society and the country. In particular, it has to adopt amendments to the current state budget and work out the next year’s budget. There is still a high possibility that the BYuT faction will keep on blocking the work of parliament, besides, the grounds for blocking, voiced by this faction, are not convincing, and, probably, have little in common with the real reasons of blocking.

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V.Baloha informed that the President believes that the Verkhovna Rada Speaker should play the main consolidating role in parliament. In the opinion of Victor Yushchenko, Speaker Arseniy Yatseniuk, together with Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, and leaders of BYuT faction – Ivan Kyrylenko and OU-PSD faction – Vyachelsav Kyrylenko, should thoroughly probe into the reasons, hampering the coalition’s work. They should together draw up a real plan of actions to smooth all problematic aspects inside the majority, as well as in its collaboration with the government.

At the same time, President’s Chief of Staff expressed a moderate optimism about the ability of Yulia Tymoshenko and her political force to carry out “a fruitful dialog from the position of understanding and responsibility”. In the opinion of V.Baloha, the current problems of the coalition come not from the President and not from the Verkhovna Rada chairman but from the stubborn obstinacy of BYuT and its leader on many important issues of parliamentary and governmental activities.

The President’s Chief of Staff listed an example that Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko did not allow to include any Ministers, responsible for social-economical sphere, into the official delegation, which left on a visit for Portugal together with the Ukrainian President on Monday.  “In fact, it means that the government turned away from millions of workers, waiting for help of the state in solving their problems. In such a way, the PM dug herself into a hole prepared for the President”, V.Baloha said.