In the pre-Easter week, the citizens of Ukraine received a “strategic” initiative, which strikes with the grandeur of the swing as much as with its senselessness and frankness in demonstrating the probable motives of the initiators. The President created the National Council for the renewal of Ukraine from the consequences of the war. The idea itself to assemble a think tank that would generate new ideas and solutions for the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine is, no doubt, wonderful and timely.. And the fact that it was Vladimir Zelensky who undertook to implement this idea is also good.. It fell to him today to stand at the head of a state whose people and army are desperately resisting Moloch on the frontier of the democratic world. Who, besides the president, has more potential to attract the best intellectuals to the creation of the future Ukraine - world stars of political philosophy, economics, political science, urban studies, and other disciplines and fields of activity? However, it seems that so far the office of the president has fallen into error.

What is our need?

The first thing that the war brought us: blood, pain, the loss of the most valuable thing - human lives - and destruction. But along with these terrible consequences, the war can also give Ukraine unique opportunities.. This is not only an opportunity to finally get rid of ethical and aesthetic ugliness and uncertainties, socio-economic rudiments and atavisms inherited by our society from the imperial and Soviet eras.. This is an opportunity to develop such a social ethos and aesthetics, build new institutions and infrastructure that will allow Ukraine to take the path of sustainable development tomorrow and be globally competitive in the long term (30-50-70 years).

The biggest mistake that is easy to make now is to follow the reflex to recreate what was literally lost in the war: from obsolete Khrushchev houses, panels, heating networks and transport infrastructure to the archaic post-Soviet structure of the economy, distorted tax, antitrust, intellectual property and state aid policies.. Another obvious temptation, which is easy to succumb to and which will quickly lead us to even more decline, is to invest limited resources in unpromising liabilities like ill-conceived, but such sweet, large construction projects..

We are unlikely to be able to break out of the networks of the past on our own this time, as we have not been able to for the past thirty years.. First of all, because of the lack of visionaries. An additional complication and, at the same time, an advantage is that the governments of those who are commonly called developed democracies also do not have ready-made solutions for us - due to the global crisis of liberalism and democracy in general. The most important questions to which we have to look for answers are what should be the model of the post-war economy, what should be the model of the state for whose existence we are fighting today, what should be the model of the destroyed and restored Ukrainian city?

How to proceed?

Today there is a unique historical moment when the President of Ukraine has the moral right and objective grounds to seek intellectual help from such people as Gregory Menkiw, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen, Arendt Leiphart, Roger Brubaker, Larry Diamond, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer,.

I must confess: not so long ago, most of these two dozen names were unknown to me, as they may be unknown to many Ukrainians now.. But thanks to the time spent studying the work of most of these scientists in an academic program at Oxford, I now have a good reason to consciously offer their expertise for Ukraine. Just as I used to share with loved ones the contacts of a first-class surgeon or an impeccable bricklayer on occasion.. And consciously, because thirteen years of experience in public administration in Ukraine, which preceded my studies, allowed me to understand exactly how the advanced knowledge of the world can be applied to solving Ukrainian problems.

Many of the intellectual giants named and unnamed here would probably gladly respond to the appeal of the Ukrainian President. They may be interested in applying their approaches and vision in a country that is not just reforming or restoring what has been lost, but is building its reclaimed future almost from scratch and with a pure heart..

Then the president could create a kind of strategic thinking committee for Ukraine. (Let's call it that for the purposes of this article.. ) Something like the Global Thinking Committee at Columbia University in New York, which at various times was headed by the same mentioned Joseph Stiglitz and Saskia Sassen. The only difference is that while the Colombian committee can be associated with a mouthpiece (narrower entrance and wider exit), the Ukrainian one will be more akin to a watering can, that is, it can be even more effective in filling the bowl of our society with new meanings and solutions generated in.

All that would be needed for the work of such a committee is a group of local highly qualified data analysts with appropriate access to the necessary information and the organization of high-quality communication of the committee members among themselves and with the beneficiaries of their work.. All this could be successfully provided, for example, by Ukrainian analytical centers. It would also be a show of decency and respect to be able to offer reasonable compensation to committee members for their time spent.. I am convinced that it would be right from a moral and ethical point of view to finance this fee fund at the expense of Ukrainian public funds.

The role of the President of Ukraine in the formation of such a think tank should have been limited to an invitation to join, intermediate motivational manifestations of gratitude and a final gratitude; perhaps even to mark at the end with state awards those who served Ukraine the most. In principle, there is no role for the office of the president, except for helping the head of state in communication with potential committee members. The main beneficiaries of the work of the strategic thinking committee for Ukraine should be, first of all, the government of Ukraine as the highest body in the system of executive authorities, the Verkhovna Rada as a legislative body, as well as local governments, because one of the main subjects of post-war reconstruction will be territorial communities, and one of.

What's Really Happening?

Opening Decree No. 266/2022 of 21. 04. 2022, we will not see anything like the one outlined above, but instead we will see a completely different picture. The National Council created by the President consists only of Ukrainian state officials. It includes almost all members of the government and heads of parliamentary committees, the head of the National Bank, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, as well as the head of the office of the president and his deputies.. The co-chairs of the National Council are the prime minister and the head of the presidential office, and the secretary is the head of the Verkhovna Rada committee on finance, tax and customs policy. At the same time, the National Council is a consultative and advisory body under the President of Ukraine..

The intellectual power of such a composition of the National Council is hardly comparable to the challenges that Ukrainian society now faces - with all due respect to each of its members. In addition, even with a cursory analysis of the design of the newly minted organ, several inappropriate moments immediately catch your eye..

Firstly, the very fact that the president included the whole Cabinet of Ministers and the heads of parliamentary committees in his subsidiary body looks doubtful, because each of them has his own responsibility assigned to him by law and a considerable range of direct duties.. Routine will prevent them from thinking creatively, which means that at best they will come to the meeting of the National Council with folders that their assistants and directors of departments will prepare for them, before carefully dusting them and sticking a “Reforms” sticker.

Secondly, the equalization of the prime minister, who occupies the highest political position in the executive branch, as defined by the Constitution, and the head of a mere permanent auxiliary body of the president, whose position is neither a political nor a civil service position, is nothing more than.

Thirdly, the very fact of such an equalization only testifies to the fact that we actually do not have any prime minister, and virtually all processes not only in the National Council, but also in the government and parliament will be led by a person from the office of the president - without.

So there is reason to believe that the intention of the initiators of the National Assembly in this form was by no means the creation of conditions for generating the best ideas for the restoration of Ukraine. On the other hand, there are more signs that the goal could be the destruction of the normal process of developing state policy, leveling the role of the government and parliament in this process, which in fact should be leading both in terms of democratic standards for the formation of state policy, and in terms of the prescriptions of the Ukrainian. The fact that the independent co-chair of the Rada is the head of the presidential office, and the secretary is the head of the committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on finance, tax and customs policy, does not allow us to exclude that the main goal of the “strategic” initiative is to control the leadership of the president’s office, in.

It is especially disappointing that the problems of non-trivial content and scale are again trying to be solved by the most trivial methods.. By the very methods of innumerable glades: national, coordinating, development and God knows what else, with the help of which over the past thirty years more than one reform has been buried in Ukraine and more than one window of historical opportunities has been tightly boarded up.

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