| Country: | Ukraine |
| European Party of Ukraine | |
| Native Name: | Європейська партія України |
| Leader: | Mykola Katerynchuk[1] |
| Ideology: | Liberalism |
| Position: | Centre |
| European: | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party |
| Colours: | Blue |
| Headquarters: | Kyiv |
| Website: | http://www.epu.in.ua/ |
| Flag: | European Party of Ukraine.jpg |
The European Party of Ukraine (Ukrainian: Європейська партія України) is a Ukrainian political party registered by the Ministry of Justice on August 3, 2006. Its ideology is social-liberalism, when the state should maintain harmonious social relations: create appropriate conditions for free competition, to prevent the formation of market monopolies and protect the vulnerable population strata. They advocate reforms that they claim will increase social standards of life of Ukrainians to the European level. They support integration of Ukraine into the European Union. Initially, the party was headed by Mykola Moskalenko. In August 2013 the party had more than 5,000 members. The party did not take part in national elections since 2012.
The date of registration of the European Party of Ukraine by the Ministry of Justice is August 3, 2006. The first party leader was Mykola Moskalenko, and Victor Zavalnyy was his deputy. Since September 2007 Mykola Katerynchuk has been the leader of the party.
The European Party joined the single "megablock" of national democratic parties "Our Ukraine–People's Self-Defense Bloc" in the early 2007 parliamentary elections.The party's people's deputy according to the block's list was Mykola Katerynchuk. After polling 14.15% of the votes, the block was the third biggest block and got 72 seats in the Parliament.[2]
During the 2008 Kyiv local election the party was part of Mykola Katerynchuk Bloc that won 3.47% of the votes and 5 seats in the Kyiv City Council.[3] [4] Mykola Katerynchuk ran for the post Mayor of Kyiv.
During the presidential elections 2010 the European Party of Ukraine supported Yulia Tymoshenko.[5]
During the 2010 Ukrainian local elections the party won no representatives in Oblast Councils (regional parliaments); its biggest success was winning 1 seat in the city council of Lutsk.[6] According to the results of local elections the European party won 150 local government seats.
In October 2008 the party intended to run in the October 2012 parliamentary elections (also) as part of a political alliance and was holding negotiations with the Lytvyn Bloc, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc and Vitaliy Klychko (in case he would participate in the elections independently) and other political forces.[7] In August 2011 the party announced it would merge with Civil Position.[8] However, Civil Position competed on one single party under the "umbrella" party "Fatherland", together with several other parties, during the 2012 parliamentary elections[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] In these elections (European Party of Ukraine) party leader Katerynchuk won a constituency in Vinnytsia Oblast (and thus was re-elected into parliament) under the same banner.[15] [16] [17] [18] In the same election the party competed in/for 5 constituencies (seats) under its own name (Vinnytsia Oblast, Volyn Oblast, Donetsk Oblast, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Poltava Oblast and Sumy Oblast; the party did not participate in the elections in the national multi-mandate electoral district);[19] but it won in none and thus missed parliamentary representation.[20] When several of the other parties that had competed under "umbrella" "Fatherland" in the 2012 parliamentary elections merged into "Fatherland" in June 2013[21] the party did not merge with them and kept its independence.[22]
In October 2012 during the parliamentary elections the European Party of Ukraine proposed its candidates in single-mandate majority electoral districts in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Poltava and Sumy regions. The European Party of Ukraine did not participate in the elections in the national multi-mandate electoral district. The party leader Mykola Katerynchuk was elected at the majority electoral district No.13 (Kalinovsky, Khmelnitsky, Kozatinsky districts of Vinnytsia region), he got 64.34% of votes.[18]
In Horlivka city council in the majority electoral district No. 21 (the town of the Rumyantseva mine and a part of the residential district “Sonyachnyy”) the candidate of the European Party of Ukraine Iryna Korzhukova was elected as a deputy . Receiving 42.8% she outpolled the Party of Regions candidate Vladimir Drukovsky (23.8%) and the Communist Oleg Afonichkin (11.74%).[23] The leader of the party began the campaign for mayor of Kyiv, he has significant support of Kyiv citizens [24] The Kyiv local election date is not yet determined.[25] The Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine) has not yet set a date for the elections (by law it is obliged to do so).[26] [27]
The party did not participate in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election.[28] Its leader Katerynchuk was a candidate for Petro Poroshenko Bloc in single-member districts number 13 situated in Kalynivka; but lost this election with 41.29% of the votes to independent candidate Petro Yurchyshyn who gained 44.79%.[29]
The party supported the candidature of Anatoliy Hrytsenko in the March 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. Party leader Katerynchuk became Hrytsenko's legal advisor in Hrytsenko's election headquarters in December 2018.[30] In these election Hrytsenko did not proceed to the second round of the election; in the first round he placed fifth with 6.91% of the votes.[31]
In the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election the European Party of Ukraine again did not take part.[32] Party leader Mykola Katerynchuk was placed in the top five in the top ten of the party list of Civil Position.[33] But Civil Position gained 1.04% of the national vote and no parliamentary seats.[34]
The Chairman of the European Party of Ukraine is Mykola Katerynchuk – the people's deputy of Ukraine of VI, V, VI and VII convocations, the Cand.Sc. Law. Before he joined the big-league politics, he worked as lawyer. In 2004 he protected the interests of candidate for President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko at the Supreme Court of Ukraine.
February 2012 – the Central Executive Committee was headed by Vitaly Shcherbenko.In August 2013 the European Party of Ukraine has regional branches in 20 regions of Ukraine, Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Kyiv (Vinnitsa, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Transcarpathian, Zaporizhzhya, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Luhansk, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, Chernihiv).
The party adheres to the basic principles of social liberalism, according to that the state should intervene into economic processes to fight monopoly and maintain a competitive market environment. The society should have legitimate reasons if the income does not meet the contribution of a person to the common good, to withdraw some of this income through taxes and redistribute it for social needs. Improving the living conditions of the poorest strata of society will contribute to the growth of the internal market and economic growth.
The Ukrainian Youth NGO «European Youth Movement» as a youth wing of the European Party of Ukraine was created in 2009. The European Youth Movement has offices in 19 regions of the country and has a purpose to develop young force of Ukraine for which human rights and freedoms and the democratic European vector of development of Ukraine have the highest priority.[35] [36]
The European Party of Ukraine in May 2013 became a full member (with voting rights) of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party – an international union of liberal parties of Europe that includes 50 parties from different countries.[37]