OREANDA-NEWS. January 09, 2007. The Verkhovna Rada adopted the Law of Ukraine on the National Budget 2008 and amendments to some legal acts. The law was passed with 235 votes, reported the Official website www.kmu.gov.ua.

Factions of the OU-PSD and BYUT and eight members of the CPU voted for the budget. The factions of the Party of regions and the Bloc of Lytvyn didn't vote.

As Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk explained before the voting, the Law on the national budget was proposed with changes made by the Parliament Budgetary Committee.

The faction of the Bloc of Lytvyn demanded to clearly fix that the agricultural VAT will be valid until January 1 of the year following the year of Ukraine's accession to the WTO. According to Speaker Yatsenyuk, the final provisions of the budget envisage that by January 15 bills on agrarian sector protection within the accession to the WTO must be filed with the Parliament.

According OU-PSD faction chair Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, the coalition has fulfilled its promise to voters. Due to the adopted budget, irrespectively whom the people voted for, they will have enhanced pensions, salaries, scholarships, military maintenances and other payments. He said the coalition has made many recessions to the opposition and stressed the social guarantees were secured.

By way of summing up the parliamentary session Speaker Yatsenyuk said the budget will be amended. He slated the next session of the parliament for January 15 and said March will see a new redaction of the budget.