On August 31, 2019, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, the President of Ukraine made his first official visit to the Republic of Poland.
On this day in Warsaw, the President of Ukraine held official negotiations with Andrzej Duda, the President, Mateusz Muravecki, Prime Minister, and Stanislav Karczewski, Senate Marshal.
At the end of the working day, at the initiative of the Association of Ukrainian Businesses in Poland and with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Poland, a business meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyi and representatives of the business community of two countries and a small group of Ukrainian students studying in this country took place in the Bachevsky Ukrainian restaurant.
The meeting was moderated by Yaroslav Romanchuk, the President of the Ukrainian Business Association in Poland, Managing Partner of the EUCON Legal Group, and Ireneus Derek, the Head of the Board of the Association, Member of the Board of the International Community of Polish Entrepreneurs in Ukraine.
The President of Ukraine was accompanied at the meeting by: Alexander Danilyuk – Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Dmitry Kuleba – Vice Prime Minister for European Integration of Ukraine; Vadim Pristayko – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Oleksiy Orzhel – Minister of Energy and Environmental Protection, Maxim Nefedov – Chairman of the State Customs Service of Ukraine, Igor Zhovkva – Head of the Main Department of Foreign Policy and European Integration of the Office of the President, Igor Novikov – Advisor to the President, Julia Mendel – the press secretary of the President, as well as the Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Poland Andriy Deshchitsa and other representatives of the diplomatic mission.
The meeting was attended by 40 business representatives, the largest investors of two countries, among whom there were Ukrainian investors doing business in Poland, and representatives of Polish businesses who invested and work in the Ukrainian market, as well as leaders of the largest banks and financial institutions in Poland.
During the meeting, participants had the opportunity to communicate directly with the President of Ukraine, discuss problematic aspects and issues of doing business in Ukraine and Poland, especially the business interaction of two countries, the investment climate and the prospects for its change, and were also able to present their ideas and new mechanisms for solving problematic questions.
Among the issues raised, participants spoke about the implementation of customs policy and customs procedures, about permits for transport companies engaged in international transportation, about reducing or abolishing customs duties, VAT on equipment that is imported to manufacturing enterprises in our country for their own needs, about the outflow and options for the return of human capital, on land reform and a number of other issues.
Volodymyr Zelenskyi, together with representatives of the government and the office of the President, actively discussed the mechanisms of interaction between the authorities and entrepreneurs in order to solve the tasks. The President of Ukraine noted the special importance of meetings of this format and emphasized the importance of dialogue in the relations of business and authorities of Poland and Ukraine in the international context for the most successful and fruitful cooperation.
In addition to issues arised, participants of the meeting discussed important future issues of the upcoming reforms.
So, Yaroslav Romanchuk handed over to the President the concept of land reform in Ukraine, consisting of nine bills, which was developed by a team of attorneys-at-law of the Polish and Ukrainian offices of the EUCON Legal Group, headed by Anatolii Miroshnychenko, the head of the practice of land and agrarian law, senior partner, professor, Doctor of Laws.
The “Concept” can become universal mechanism for resolving a sick land issue, including the lifting of a moratorium on the alienation of agricultural land and the introduction of a land market.
The essence of the mentioned “Concept” is that authors have developed specific proposals for the implementation of the final stage of land reform in Ukraine.
The most important steps at this stage, according to the authors, are the following measures: lifting the moratorium on the alienation of agricultural land; improving the system of land rights (streamlining property relations, abandoning the construction of the so-called “permanent use right”, turning land leases from property rights into mandatory rights); abandonment of the principle of “targeted use of land” and the division of land into categories for its intended purpose in favor of strengthening the role of territorial planning and the protection of specially protected lands; rejection of the so-called “free” privatization of land in its current form and its monetization; a significant simplification of the land tendering procedure, which, among other things, will open the way for electronic tendering; implementation of the principle of unity of the legal share of the land and real estate, which is located on it; improvement of the procedure for maintaining the State Land Cadastre; decentralization in the field of land relations; codification of land laws.
The text of the “Concept” provides a detailed description of each of the listed measures, as well as the corresponding reasoning and expected results from the implementation of the “Concept”.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy positively assessed the initiative and invited Anatolii Miroshnychenko, the project manager to join the working group on reforming land relations in our country.
Generally, the meeting turned out to be quite fruitful, confirming the urgent need to establish direct contact between the authorities and entrepreneurs of Poland and Ukraine.
The President of Ukraine emphasized that he respects Ukrainian investors in Poland but called for investing in Ukraine and promised to personally protect the interests of not only foreign investors, but also Ukrainian ones.
At the initiative of Yaroslav Romanchuk, Marcin Svintsitski, the newly elected Business Ombudsman of Ukraine, was invited to the meeting, who in his speech briefed the President on the priority steps that he intends to take at this post and informed that he would begin his duties in mid-October.
The floor was also given to Inga Livandovska, representative of the Polish League of Ukrainian Students – the youth wing of the Association of Ukrainian Business in Poland, who assured the President that Ukrainian youth was ready to return to Ukraine and put into practice the knowledge and experience that they had gained in this country.
The meeting was also attended by Andriy Romanchuk – partner, head of the Polish office of the EUCON Legal Group.
The evening ended on a positive note with great hopes and plans for the future.
