MPs vote down draft law №4197-d on timber market

On April 29, the Verkhovna Rada did not support the European integration draft law No. 4197-d “On the Timber Market” – it did not have the necessary 226 votes to pass it. Information on the progress of this legal act is available in its card on the Parliament's website. According to it, during the roll-call vote in the second reading and in general, 175 MPs voted in favor of the draft law “On the Timber Market,” 3 MPs voted against, 29 MPs abstained, and 64 MPs did not vote. After that, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada put to the vote the issue of sending draft law No. 4197-d for a repeated second reading. It also failed to find the necessary support: “185 votes in favor, 4 against, 29 abstentions, and 56 did not vote. This means that MPs will not be able to return to work on this draft law at this session. However, nothing prevents them from registering the same document with a different number and a changed name to vote for it again. We have already seen such a trick during the adoption of the Law of Ukraine No. 3855-IX “On Integrated Prevention and Control of Industrial Pollution”.

Timeline of the draft law on the timber market

The first vote in the Verkhovna Rada and the adoption of the document as a basis took place on November 18, 2021. According to Yuriy Dyug, coordinator of the Wood Industry UA economic platform, MPs have been active in the preparation of this document only in the last 9 months, although the discussion around this draft law has been going on for many years. The discussion of the European integration draft law No. 4197-d on the timber market prepared for the second reading took place both in December 2024 at a meeting of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development, which is designated as the main committee for this document, and in January this year at a round table on public discussion of the document. At that time, the chairman of the committee, MP Dmytro Natalukha, claimed that by the end of January, the draft law should be finalized and ready for the parliament. As of mid-January, only the version of the document for the first reading was available on the Verkhovna Rada's website, which had been amended in the course of preparation. On February 4, the Committee on Economic Development at its meeting recommended that the Verkhovna Rada adopt in the second reading and as a whole the draft Law No. 4197-d “On the Timber Market.” The relevant committee later provided its recommendation to the Verkhovna Rada to adopt the draft law No. 4197-d in the second reading and as a whole at a meeting on April 24. In preparing the document for the second reading, MPs received 904 proposals and submitted 9 more. As a result, 9 of them were taken into account, 119 proposals were taken into account editorially, and 785 proposals were rejected. Earlier, EcoPolitic published an article about the progress of the draft law No. 4197-d “On the Timber Market” and its main provisions.